


Haunted Britain

by DashFlintceschi



Category: One Direction, You Me At Six
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dan's the genuinely psychic medium, Josh and Louis are presenters, Liam and Chris are camera men, M/M, Matt and Harry are sound guys, Max and Niall are researchers, TV Show
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-22
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-05-15 12:27:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5785303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DashFlintceschi/pseuds/DashFlintceschi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The crew of Haunted Britain travel the country, spending the night in haunted locations in the hopes of catching activity on camera.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Season 1 - Scotland

**Author's Note:**

> This will have four chapters, each chapter will be each country of the UK, Scotland, England, Wales, then Ireland. If anyone has any places further afield they'd like me to add, just drop me a comment!

**Mary King’s Close**

Niall sighs as he clambers out of the van, grabbing a case of equipment from Harry’s overfull arms.There really aren’t enough of them for everything that needs done, but unsurprisingly, not many people responded to the advert looking for crew for the show. Few people are brave enough; or in several of their cases, weird enough; to actually want to go into creepy, reportedly haunted places in the dead of night, no matter how good the pay is.

Once they’re set up, Niall, Max and Dan hang back behind the cameras while Josh and Louis film the intro.

“Welcome to Haunted Britain,” “My name’s Josh,” “And I’m Louis,” “Tonight, we’re in Mary King’s Close in Edinburgh,” “Located under buildings in the Old Town area of the city, it took its name from Mary King, daughter of advocate Alexander King, who in the 17th century owned several properties within the close,” “The close was partially demolished and buried under the Royal Exchange, and later closed to the public for many years, the complex became shrouded in myths and urban legends,” “Tales of ghosts and murders, and myths of plague victims being walled up and left to die abounded,” “Tonight, we’ll be walking it’s narrow tunnels to find out if there’s any truth to the myths,” they agreed who was saying what days ago, and practiced on the drive up, so it flows easily, and Liam gives them a thumbs up from behind his camera as Chris calls a cut.

They walk the tunnels for hours, most of it filled with Josh and Louis talking to the cameras, while Dan tries to get a sense of any spirits. He gets a few, but they’re faint and not worth pursuing. Finally, just after three in the morning, when they’re really deep down, Dan stiffens and freezes, causing Louis to walk into his back.

“You got something?” Louis asks softly, pressing his hand to Dan’s back, and Dan nods stiffly.

“I can hear a voice… Give me a minute,” he murmurs, relaxing slightly as he listens, then wanders forward slowly for a few feet, then stops to listen again.

He continues this pattern for a few minutes, the rest of them following him curiously, until he finally stops, listens, screws his face up in confusion for a minute, then nods and turns back to them.

“I can hear a child being read their Last Rites,” he announces slowly, and Max takes out his tablet, researching the information as Josh lights up.

“How do you know it’s a child?” He asks, totally fascinated, and Dan gives him a grim smile.

“Because I can hear her crying for her mum,” he tells him, and Josh’s face drops, but the hungry fascination never leaves his eyes. Not that any of them can blame him. They’re pretty positive that no matter how many times they watch Dan do this, it will never stop being totally fascinating.

“Any names?” Max asks distractedly, and Chris turns to point his camera at him and Niall as they research, while Liam stays trained on the other three. Harry and Matt have a conversation with their eyebrows for a minute, then Harry turns his boom on them and Matt stays where he is. Dan listens for a minute, then shrugs one shoulder.

“Eilidh, no last name, nothing on the priest. I can try to find the right room and try talking to them, if you want,” he offers, and Louis nods.

They follow Dan as he meanders from room to room, stopping in the doorway of each one, listening for a moment, shaking his head, and moving on to the next one.

“It’s usually a lot easier to pin down a location, but the echoes in here are making it difficult,” he explains after a few minutes, a slightly defensive undercurrent in his voice. Josh pats his shoulder reassuringly, and they continue on. “Father Dougan,” he announces out of the blue a few seconds later, and Josh jumps slightly.

“What?” He blinks, and Dan half turns back towards him.

“Eilidh, she just asked ‘Father Dougan, where’s mummy?’, his name’s Father Dougan,” he elaborates distractedly, still focused on the voices. Max and Niall nod to each other, Niall researching the names while Max stays focused on the history of the close.

After a few minutes of silence, while Dan continues to try to find the right room, Louis nods to Max and Niall, silently asking them to share what they’ve found so far. Chris and Harry turn the camera and boom to them again, and Niall shrugs.

“I can’t find much on the little girl without a surname. I found the priest, but there isn’t much to say. Father Gregory Dougan, born in Northern Ireland in 1619, no mentions of a specific location, joined the priesthood when he was eighteen, came to Edinburgh when he was twenty three, died here in 1649 from the plague when he was thirty. He did spend a lot of time in the close, giving comfort to plague victims,” he rattles off, and Max nods.

“The plague hit Edinburgh in the 1640’s, and spread through the close in 1645. There’s a myth that the city bricked up the entrances with people still alive inside and left them to die, and didn’t open it back up for several years, but I can’t verify whether or not that part is true,” Max adds, and the four of them turn back to Dan as he lets out a soft, happy chirrup.

“It’s this way, definitely,” he announces, and they follow him quietly as he paces through several twisting tunnels, finally stopping at a room that, to Louis, looks identical to every single one they passed.

Dan stares at the corner of the room for a few seconds, then slowly moves into the middle of the room.

“Eilidh? Father Dougan? Can you hear me?” He asks softly, eyes still trained on the same corner. He waits a few seconds, then repeats his question a little louder. He tries a few more times, then shakes his head and turns back to them. “They’re still here, but they’re not responding. It happens, sometimes they hear me, sometimes they don’t,” he explains, then jumps harshly and looks down beside himself. He crouches down, eyes still trained on a specific spot in front of him, quietly nodding for a minute. “Well, Father Dougan’s wrong… I am nice… My name’s Dan, what’s yours? Eilidh Louise McConnell, that’s very pretty… I’m twenty five, how old are you? Seven? Wow, you are a big girl, aren’t you? Well, that’s because I’m from England, you sound funny to me… Ok, thank you for talking to me, buh bye,” finally, he stands back up and turns to them with a massive grin. “Well, she was absolutely lovely. Did you get the name?” He asks, and Niall nods, still slightly stunned.

“W-what did she say?” Louis asks shakily, and Dan’s grin widens.

“Well firstly, they could hear me, but Father Dougan made her ignore me because he thought I was a demon, but she decided to talk to me because she thought I sounded nice. Then she told me her name and how old she was, then she wanted to know why I ‘talk funny’, then she left because Father Dougan told her her mum was coming,” he tells them, still grinning widely.

Finally, Niall shakes himself out of his shock and researches the information Dan gave them.

“I found a record of her. Eilidh Louise McConnell, born October 1640, parents were Flora and Rory McConnell, she lived here her whole life, and the three of them died from the plague within days of each other in December 1647, when she was seven years old,” he relays, and Dan nods happily.

They wander the tunnels the rest of the night, but other than distant voices and a quick glimpse of Eilidh skipping past with her mum, there’s nothing else substantial. Finally, they head back up to the surface, stopping a few feet in for Josh and Louis to film the outro. When they come out onto the street, blinking in the early morning sun, the city is just starting to wake up. As they trail sleepily to where they left the van in a carpark nearby, Liam looks at each of them in turn and grins with a slightly stunned look in his eyes.

“Did that actually fucking happen?” He asks with a soft laugh, and Dan snorts at them as they start chattering excitedly. He’s just glad he didn’t get thrown around the room this time.

**Cawdor Castle**

After catching a few hours sleep in the van, they make the one hundred and sixty mile, three and a half hour journey to their next location, Cawdor Castle, located in Nairn, just outside of Inverness. As they’re passing through the Cairngorms, Harry gets a call from their producer, Steven, who snottily tries to threaten them into ‘behaving’, whatever that means. Apparently, it took a decent amount of money and a lot of promises to get them in for the night, and Steven’s the one who will get it in the neck if anything goes wrong. Dan makes a snarky comment about passing on his threats to the ghosts, grabs Harry’s phone and hangs up.

They make good time and reach Nairn just after noon. They get their bearings, grab something to eat, then sleep in the van until early evening. The van isn’t really big enough for them all to sleep in, especially with Harry and Josh and their lanky legs, but they make do. When Josh’s alarm wakes them at six, they clamber and fall over each other, somehow detangling from each other to stumble out of the van. They get some strange looks from passersby as they stretch sleepily, Max and Louis lighting cigarettes as soon as they’re out of the van, but none of them pay attention to it. They know it looks odd, nine men climbing out of a dirty, beat up van, half asleep and rumpled at six in the evening. The only one of them to acknowledge anyone is Dan, who gives an apologetic smile to a woman who looks slightly ill after he stretches lazily and half a dozen joints crack loudly.

Once they’ve woken up properly and gotten themselves sorted, they head up to the castle. The cheery woman who greets them and lets them in makes them doubt the validity of Steven’s claims, but they don’t think about it for long as they start setting up. They start with Louis and Josh interviewing the woman, Kate, about the castle, while Max and Niall try to coax Dan out of the van.

As they’d driven up the long driveway, he’d gone white as a sheet and refused to go inside, or even get out of the van.

“I can’t. There is something evil here, and it knows I’m here. It wants me scared, and it’s succeeding,” he tells Max and Niall hoarsely, and Max bites his lip. They need him to come inside, but hearing that, he feels guilty for even considering continuing to persuade him. He shares a look with Niall and knows Niall feels the same way, but finally, Max steels himself.

“Look, just… Come in for a couple of minutes. If you can’t handle it, we’ll figure something else out, ok?” He tries, and Dan hesitates for a few seconds, then slowly nods.

“Ok, but if I need to leave, you have to let me, yeah?” He checks, and they both nod.

“Of course, mate. We’re not going to force you,” Niall reassures, and Dan sighs, slowly getting out of the van and following them into the building.

Nothing happens when Dan goes inside, and he starts to relax. They get the rest of the setup done without any more problems, but when Josh and Louis are filming the intro, they’re interrupted by Dan gasping harshly. They all turn to him worriedly, finding him pressed against the wall, he’s gone pale again and he looks terrified.

“You ok, love?” Josh asks gently, and Dan shakes his head quickly.

“We need to leave. Right now.” He grinds out, and they nod, immediately starting to pack everything up as Harry slowly approaches Dan.

“Did it try to hurt you?” He asks softly, and Dan shakes his head.

“There was a woman with no hands. She told me to run. It’s going to kill us if we stay,” he relays tensely, and Harry nods understandingly, wrapping his arm around Dan’s shoulders as he leads him out of the room, the others quickly following with the gear.

They make it halfway down the hall, then Dan’s pulled out of Harry’s grasp and thrown against the wall with a harsh thump. He starts choking, face turning red as his hands scrabble at his throat. Josh and Harry rush to him and start trying to pull him free, but it doesn’t seem to be working. Finally, they dislodge the entity just enough for Dan to gasp out, “salt, quick.” They’re confused, but Matt still searches the bags and produces a large tub of salt. They all look at each other in confusion, knowing they need to hurry, but having no idea what to do. Dan makes a noise and they turn to him, understanding as Dan mimes throwing the salt.

Matt unscrews the lid and takes out a large handful, throwing it at Dan. Instantly, he slides down the wall, gasping for breath as Harry grabs him and pulls him outside, the others right behind them as they practically throw themselves into the van and tear down the driveway. Once they’re off the property and feel a bit safer, Liam turns around to stare at Dan with huge eyes.

“Are you alright?” He asks weakly, and Dan shrugs with a wince.

“My back and neck are killing me, but I’ll live,” he reassures, but his raspy, barely-there voice doesn’t exactly reassure them. “Oh, and for future reference, salt gets rid of malevolent entities, and I always have some in my bag,” he adds, and they nod, wanting to ask questions, but knowing Dan’s not up to answering.

They go back to the carpark they slept in earlier in the day, and Josh texts Steven, telling him they can’t do Cawdor Castle. When he gets a reply full of expletives and threats, he sends back photos of Dan’s quickly bruising throat and back, making sure to get a clear shot of the hand shaped bruise on his throat. It actually surprises them when Steven calls a few minutes later and actually apologises. He explains that he’s under a lot of pressure to make the show a success, but it’s not more important than their lives. They accept his apology, and Liam has an idea.

“We got a lot of good footage while we were there, we could do an intro and outro in the van, explaining why we had to leave, with the footage we did get in between,” he suggests, and they all nod.

“I think you were still filming when the handless woman told me to run, yeah?” Dan asks, and he and Chris nod.

“Yeah, but I wasn’t going to suggest using it,” Liam assures him, and Dan shrugs with a flinch.

“No, I think you should use it, and maybe take some shots of my back, to show the damage these things can do,” he insists, and they shrug.

“Well, it’s up to you, so if you want to, then I guess it makes sense,” Josh agrees slowly, and Steven thanks them for understanding and for helping him, then they hang up.

They spend the next hour filming the shots they need. They do the intro first, Josh and Louis explaining that they’d tried to spend the night in the castle, but it had proved too dangerous. After that, they get some shots of Dan’s throat and back, as well as a few minutes of him explaining what actually happened, since he was the only one who could actually see everything. Once they do the outro, they pack everything away and try to amuse themselves for the rest of the night.

Matt finds a pack of cards somewhere, and he, Chris, Niall and Liam start up a game of poker. Louis retrieves his book from his bag and settles down to read for a while, and Josh, Max, and Harry settle into the back seat, talking softly. Dan considers his options for a minute, then stretches out across the seat, his head in Louis’ lap as he tries to get a few hours sleep.

Louis slides his hand into Dan’s hair, playing with it and rubbing his scalp gently, humming softly, trying to help Dan relax and get comfortable. After an hour of listening to Dan shifting restlessly and whimpering in agony, Harry sighs deeply and starts to climb over the seats to get to the door.

“Where you goin’?” Louis asks distractedly, not looking up from his book, and Harry sighs again.

“To look for somewhere that’s still open. There’s got to be something we can do,” he insists, returning Dan’s grateful smile as he pulls on his hoodie; well, a hoodie, he’s not sure whose it is; then climbs out of the van, trying to avoid moving the van as much as possible.

After another half an hour of listening to Dan shift and whimper, they cheer softly in relief when Harry climbs back into the van with a bag and a triumphant grin. He quickly empties the bag as Louis helps Dan sit up, then hands him a bottle of water and two painkillers.

“Right, Lou, help him get his t-shirt off and turn him ‘round,” he instructs once Dan’s taken the painkillers, and they both comply without comment. “Right, this is going to hurt, but the guy said this stuff’s really good, so it should be worth it,” he warns as he squeezes a dollop of numbing cream onto his hands.

Dan grits his teeth, an endless stream of soft curses slipping out as Harry rubs the cream into his back as fast as he can. Louis gives him his hands to squeeze, murmuring reassuringly to him the whole time, smiling brightly when Harry announces that he’s done, and Dan sighs in relief.

“Thanks, love, I can feel it getting better already,” he tells Harry gratefully, and he’s rewarded with a blinding grin as they both help him put his t-shirt back on.

He lies back down, his head in Louis’ lap again, and this time, between the painkillers and the cream, he manages to fall into a dead sleep within minutes.

**Glamis Castle**

They wait a few days before heading to the next place, and during those few days, they have a long talk with Dan, insisting that they’ll understand if he doesn’t want to do it anymore. He’s adamant that he’s staying, though, so they let it drop. Once Dan can move without flinching, they make the one hundred and fourteen mile journey south to Glamis Castle in Angus.

As they drive through the gates at Glamis Castle, they all look at him, and he smiles reassuringly.

“A lot of stuff, but none of it wants to kill me, as far as I can tell,” he informs them, and they relax slightly. As they set up and do the intro and a few interviews with staff, and nothing happens, they completely relax. Once night falls, they start filming properly. They move through the house as a group, most of the focus on Dan as he reaches out, looking for spirits. He doesn’t find any, but he does get some information. That’s the part of his ability that he tends to avoid mentioning, sometimes he can walk into a room and just _know_ things. As they move from room to room, he gets little snippets of information every now and then.

“There was a woman killed just there, under the window, something to do with her mouth, I think,”

“A woman… On fire. She was falsely accused,” he’s frowning as he says this, and Max clears his throat softly.

“You’re sure?” He checks, and Dan nods.

“I can’t really get a fix on her, I just keep hearing a woman’s voice in my head, just ‘didn’t do it, didn’t do it, didn’t do it’, over and over,” he explains, and Max nods as he pulls out his tablet.

He gets the impression of a boy on a stone chair, but only there, there’s no feel of him anywhere else, which is a little strange; and he hears someone shouting and swearing in his head, and insists he can smell whiskey, which none of them can smell, and shivers as he ‘gets the feel of the devil’, as he puts it, but when they look worried, he shrugs with an easy smile and reassures them that it’s fine, he’s busy; which manages to both calm them down and seriously creep them out at the same time.

They go back to the living room they’re using as a base, turning off the cameras while they take a break. Chris makes them all tea, and once they’re all settled with their mugs, Liam looks to Dan.

“So, when you said you got ‘the feel of the devil’, you meant…?” He trails off, and Dan snorts.

“There’s something evil here, it feels like the devil to me, but I highly doubt it. Whatever it is, we don’t need to worry about it, the owner of the voice I heard in my head is keeping him well occupied,” he elaborates, and Liam nods, though he still looks worried.

“I’m going to have to repeat this on camera later, but fuck it. That feeling you had fits with the stories. Apparently, there was this drunk Earl who kept shouting for someone to play cards with him, but no-one would, ‘cause it was a Sunday, so no gambling on the Sabbath. After a while, this creepy looking stranger turns up at the door, asking if the Earl still needs someone to play cards with him, so he goes up and starts playing with the Earl. They stay in there all night, and there’s all this shouting and swearing. One of the servants tried to look through the keyhole to spy on them and ended up blinded. The Earl hears him outside the door and comes out to shout at him for spying. The story says that when he went back into the room, ‘the man was gone, along with the Earl’s soul’, which I assume means he just dropped dead, or something. He’s said to be trapped in a secret room in the castle, forced to play cards with the devil for the rest of eternity,” Niall tells them, paraphrasing as he reads it off his tablet.

Once their break is over, they split into two groups. Josh, Chris, Max, and Matt head back to the room where Dan sensed the woman with the mouth injury; and Dan, Louis, Liam, Niall, and Harry head to the room with the woman on fire. They don’t expect much, Dan’s told them that when he just gets ‘senses’ like that, they usually don’t come to much. As they head upstairs, Louis get Niall to retell the story of the Earl for the camera, then Louis explains to the camera that they won’t be looking for the secret room. After what happened at Cawdor Castle, none of them feel comfortable with the idea of purposely seeking out evil.

They have radios, so that if Josh’s group think there’s something there, they can get Dan to come to them to investigate. Once they’re settled into the room, Niall uses the radio to let them know that they made it to the room without a detour, and Max quickly replies to let them know they’ve done the same.

“Getting anything else?” Louis asks after a few minutes of silence, and Dan concentrates for a minute, then shrugs.

“I’m almost getting a name, I think Jane or Janet. They thought she tried to kill someone, I think,” he murmurs, jaw tight in frustration.

“Any idea why she’s on fire?” Harry wonders, and Dan’s quiet for a few minutes, then nods.

“That came a bit easier. They accused her of witchcraft and burned her at the stake,” he tells them, then pauses, tilting his head as he listens. “The king couldn’t get enough evidence that she tried to kill him, so he tortured her, her family, and her servants to find the truth,” he murmurs, and Niall makes a small noise.

“From what you’ve said, I think it’s Janet Douglas. She married John Lyon, who was Lord Glamis. She was accused of poisoning him when he died, but was cleared of the crime. She was later accused of attempting to poison King James V, which led to the torturing thing,” he tells them, and Dan nods, it feels right.

Dan doesn’t get anything else from the room. After an hour, Niall radios the others to tell them that they’re done in this room. Josh radios back that they haven’t gotten anything from their room, if Dan wants to go there and try. They all agree on it and head to where the others are. Once they get settled, Josh and Louis start talking about the history of the castle, giving Dan some time to ‘settle into the room’, he calls it. He closes his eyes, tunes out Josh and Louis’ voices, and focuses on the feel of the room.

After another twenty minutes pass, he opens his eyes, waits until Louis is finished talking, then shakes his head.

“All I’m getting is that her tongue was cut out. She wanders the grounds sometimes, but she likes this room best. I can’t get anything else,” he sighs, smiling tightly when they nod understandingly.

They find the stone chair Dan had sensed earlier, but he can’t get much of a read on the little boy, either. All he gets is that he was a servant, he died after falling down the stairs, and the reason he can only be felt around the chair is because he was always fascinated by it, but was never allowed to sit in it when he was alive.

They go back to their living room base after that. Most of them settle down to get some sleep, but Dan’s feeling restless, so he decides to wander the castle some more. He offers to take one of the cameras, so Chris and Liam can sleep, but Liam and Matt insist they’re not tired, and go with him. They wander the castle for the rest of the night, until the sun starts to come up and they hear the others start moving around downstairs. Dan gets more and more frustrated as the night goes on, until Matt sets his boom against a wall, grabs Dan’s shoulders and shakes him slightly.

“Stop fucking beating yourself up. It happens. Sometimes they just don’t want to talk, and there’s nothing you can do about it. And it sure as hell isn’t your fault,” he snaps, and Dan sighs, the tension leaving him.

“Yeah, I know. Just kinda feels like I’m failing you guys, is all,” he murmurs, and Matt pulls him into a hug.

“You’re not. It’s amazing, what you do. And you can’t just turn it on and off. If you see something, then great, but if you don’t, that’s cool, too. You absolutely are not failing us, so don’t worry about it, ok?” He reassures him, and Dan nods, squeezing Matt tighter gratefully.

They head back downstairs soon after, Dan going to help pack up the gear while Liam and Matt film Josh and Louis’ outro. They leave soon after, deciding to start driving to the next location straight away. Josh drives while the rest of them sprawl out over the back seats and each other, some of them sleeping, most of them talking softly. Dan’s just starting to doze off when he hears Louis call his name from the seat in front of him.

“Yeah, Lou?” He acknowledges, and Louis hesitates slightly before he continues.

“D’you ever get scared? Seeing the stuff you do? I mean, there were a few times when we were in the tunnels in Edinburgh when I was brickin’ it, but you were just… Totally calm. Doesn’t it ever freak you out?” He asks, and the others have all gone quiet, listening curiously.

“Not really. I mean, when stuff happens like Cawdor, then yeah, that scared the shit out of me, of course it did. But normal spirits don’t. Maybe because I’m so used to them. My first memory is from when I was four, I used to play with the ghost of a little boy who died in my house. Most of them just want to talk, just want to be noticed. It’s kind of hard to be scared of them,” he explains, and Louis nods.

“S’pose, it makes sense when you put it like that,” he agrees, and Dan laughs softly. Harry makes a soft noise beside Dan, and he lifts his head slightly to look at him.

“It’s what people always say, isn’t it? We’re only frightened of them because of the fear of the unknown. But they’re not unknown to you, so why would you be scared?” He adds, and Dan nods happily.

“Exactly. I know them, I know most of them can’t and won’t hurt me. It’s just…” He trails off with a shiver, and they know exactly what he means. They’ve all been having nightmares about Cawdor.

**Airth Castle**

Dan wakes up with a small scared cry just as they drive into Airth, and they all turn to him with scared eyes as Harry pulls him into a hug.

“Not another one, please,” Max begs, and Dan shakes his head jerkily.

“No, just… Just a nightmare,” he reassures him, and they all make sympathetic noises, Niall handing him a travel mug of tea from one of the flasks. He takes it with a grateful hum and takes a deep gulp from it. “Thanks, feel better already,” he mumbles, forcing a smile.

As soon as they walk through the door of Airth Castle, Dan tenses and sighs deeply.

“You ok?” He’s not sure who asked, but he nods.

“There’s screaming, really loud screaming,” he tells them, shrugging it off and walking further into the building. The screaming stops after a few minutes, and Dan sighs in relief.

Dan interrupts the first take of the intro again, but thankfully, this time it’s because he’s laughing. They all turn to look and find him sitting on the floor.

“Made a friend already?” Liam asks with a laugh, and Dan looks up in surprise.

“Oh, I hadn’t realised he was a spirit,” he comments lightly, grin widening.

“How could you not? We’re the only ones here,” Matt asks, slightly worried.

“Because it’s not often you see the ghost of a Jack Russell,” Dan laughs, ignoring how weird it must look to the others as he pets the little dog.

They start the intro again, changing it slightly.

“Welcome to Haunted Britain,” “Tonight, we’re in Airth Castle in Falkirk, and we’ve already had activity,” “Our resident medium, Dan, has made friends with the ghost of a Jack Russell. Hopefully, any other spirits we encounter tonight will be as friendly as this one.” 

They turn the cameras off and start discussing where to go first, when Louis yelps and jumps back. Max grabs his arm to steady him, giving him a worried, questioning look.

“I dunno what it was, I got a weird, sharp pain in my ankle,” he explains, looking to Dan to see if he knows. Dan stands up then, looking annoyed.

“No. That wasn’t nice, and I’m not going to keep talking to you if you’re going to do that,” he scolds, then looks up at Louis.

“Did I just get bit by a ghost dog?” Louis asks, slightly stunned, and Dan nods with a frown.

“Yep, and I refuse to pay attention to him until I’m sure he won’t do it again,” he insists, and Louis nods slowly.

“Ok, fair enough,” he says faintly, looking to the others, who all look as baffled as he feels.

Once it gets dark, Louis digs out one of their rarely used handheld cameras, and they split into three groups of three. During the interviews with the owners, they mentioned a lot of phenomena has been reported in rooms 3, 9, and 23; so Josh, Matt, and Chris go to room 3; Liam, Harry, and Max go to room 9; and Louis, Dan, and Niall go to room 23. They’ve barely walked into the room when Dan pauses, but unusually, so do Louis and Niall.

“Did you hear that?” Louis asks, swinging the small camera around the room, and Niall nods as Dan huffs out a laugh.

“Well, yeah, but I didn’t expect you to hear it,” he tells him, grinning. They may be able to hear the giggling, but he can see the source. Three small children, two girls and a boy, are dashing wildly around the room, playing the most spirited game of tag he’s ever seen. Louis sits the camera down on a chair and takes a few steps forwards, and Dan reaches out to pull him back, but it’s too late, as Louis jumps and shivers harshly.

“What the hell?” He startles, rubbing his goosebumped arms as he steps back again.

“Um,” Dan stifles a laugh, and Louis spins around, glare demanding an answer. “One of them might have… Ran through you,” he chokes out, losing the battle and letting the loud, belly-deep laughs escape.

At the sound of Dan’s laughter, the three children squeal in delight and run to him, wrapping small, icy cold arms around his legs and chattering happily. He listens with a grin for quite a while, adding a comment of his own here and there when he gets a chance, until they seem to lose interest, voices trailing away, and Dan gets an idea. He carefully disentangles his legs from them, sidles innocently over to Niall, then slaps him on the back.

“Tag, you’re it!” He crows happily, sprinting away into the cavernous room, three squealing children and Louis hot on his heels. They play for over two hours, until the others come looking for them. They wander in looking confused just in time for Louis to run full pelt into Harry.

“Quick, Dan’s it! Run!” He giggles, turning and running again as Dan crashes into the wall with a laugh.

“You’re it!” He announces breathlessly as he grabs Max’s shoulders, spinning around and dashing away, laughing madly. They look at each other in confusion for a minute, until Harry shoves his boom into Matt’s hands and runs, Max diving after him a few seconds later.

They play for another half an hour, until Liam regretfully tells them that they’re running out of time, he’s running out of film, and both he and Chris need a break. They end the game, Dan proudly announcing that the kids definitely won, and wander out, waving cheerfully to them as they go. 

They head down to their ‘base room’, the kitchen this time, flopping down into chairs around the huge table as Niall makes tea.

“God, I can’t remember the last time I had that much fun,” Dan groans happily as he sinks into his chair.

“Well, you guys got better results than we did. Not a damn thing in either room,” Matt grouches, gratefully taking a mug from Niall as he passes them around.

“The cameras might have picked up something we didn’t see, though. They do that sometimes. When I looked over the footage from Edinburgh, I found loads of little light orbs we didn’t notice at the time,” Liam tries to cheer him up, and it works, Matt smiling easily as he takes a drink of tea.

Once they’ve caught their breath, drunk their tea, and Louis and Max slip outside to smoke while Liam and Chris put new tapes in the cameras and carefully pack up the full ones, they head upstairs. As they wander up, Dan glances down at his feet.

“Well, have you bitten anyone else? No? Good. Did you apologise to Louis? Well, you’d better,” he grouches, and a few seconds later, Louis feels a tiny, furry, icy cold body rub against his shin. Dan watches it as it trots back to him and nods. “Very good. You can stay with us tonight, as long as you don’t bite anyone else. One single nip, and you’re gone, got it?” He nods happily, and looks up, noticing the bemused looks they’re all giving him.

“You’re the kind of person who has long, one-sided conversations with their pets, aren’t you?” Josh laughs, and Dan grins widely.

“Of course I do, you don’t?” 

As they wander along the hallway, Dan stops them and backtracks to an open doorway.

“Hello!” He chirrups to the empty room, well, it’s empty to everyone else. He sees the young woman and the two children clinging to her hands sitting in the middle of the old nursery. The woman nods stoically as the little boys wave shyly. He tries a few times to draw them into conversation, but they just stare at him. He decides to try one last idea before giving up and moving on. “Y’know, there are some kids in a room just down the hall, they’re about your age, I’m sure they’d love to play with you guys,” he announces temptingly, and both boys look up at their nanny pleadingly. She considers it silently for a minute, then turns serious green eyes to Dan.

“I stay with them at all times,” she announces, and Dan nods solemnly.

“Of course. I’m sure the other kids would love to have you as their nanny, too,” he agrees, and she nods, looking down at her charges.

“Then we shall go and play,” she proclaims, and the boys cheer, bouncing happily at her sides as she follows Dan out of the room and along the hall.

The boys chatter all the way there, and when Dan comes back to the others a few minutes later, he’s grinning.

“Arthur and Michael, and their nanny, Sarah, died in a fire, don’t know when. Victoria, Henry, and Charlotte were happy to have them,” he announces, finally giving Max and Niall something to do as they continue wandering the halls.

“Did you find out how the three of them died?” Niall asks, and Dan makes an ‘eh’ motion with his hand.

“They didn’t know exactly, but from how they described it, I’d take an educated guess at scarlet fever. Henry caught it first, he was already dead when Charlotte and Victoria started showing symptoms,” he tells them, and Niall nods in thanks.

They don’t have any further encounters for the rest of the night, other than the Jack Russell, who doesn’t have a name, but who Dan christens ‘Edgar’. He stays close to Dan’s legs until they’re leaving, and he sits just inside the front door, whining softly. Dan goes back and crouches down, petting him.

“I’m sorry, I can’t take you with me. The kids in room 23 will love you, though. Their nanny won’t be happy to see you, but she’ll warm up to you soon enough,” he encourages, and with a quiet bark and an icy lick to Dan’s hand, Edgar turns and trots over to the stairs. Dan straightens up and turns back to where the others are loading the gear into the van, and finds Louis watching him.

“God, you’re weird,” he mutters teasingly with a sly smile, and Dan grins brightly.

**Dalzell House**

When they get in the van, Dan lies across one of the seats, his legs on top of Max’s, both hoping to squeeze in a nap during the short trip to Motherwell. As soon as Dan’s settled, Louis clambers over the seats and lies on top of him, stomach to stomach, his face pressed against Dan’s neck, and he’s snoring softly within seconds. Dan looks to Max for an explanation, but Max’s wide grin and thumbs up just confuse him even more. Dan makes a ‘what the fuck’ face, and they have a conversation consisting of facial expressions and shrugs that doesn’t help at all.

Finally, Dan gives up and sighs.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” He whispers, and Max frowns.

“Never mind, I thought you’d figured it out. I’m not ruining his trust ‘cause you’re an idiot,” Max huffs, closing his eyes and ignoring him. Dan spends the rest of the drive trying to figure it out, and gets nowhere.

Once they get to Motherwell, they all sleep in the van, then drive up to the house as it’s getting dark. Dan doesn’t question Max again, and doesn’t ask Louis about it either. There’s a weird tension between them all as they set up, but he does his best to ignore it.

“So, I saw a woman dressed in white wandering the grounds on the way up, d’you think we should spend sometime outside tonight, see if I can spot her again?” He asks the room at large, hating the silence. Louis shrugs, and the rest of them look at each other with odd expressions.

“Sure, how about you and Louis take one of the handhelds out for an hour or so later?” Josh suggests, and Dan starts to nod, until he notices the glare Louis is giving Josh.

“Have I done something?” He asks, slightly frustrated, and Louis sighs, giving him an obviously fake smile.

“Nah, ‘course you haven’t. It’s just typical. Any work needing done out in the cold, and that lazy shit volunteers me,” it’s clearly a lie, but Dan nods anyway.

“Fair enough, so, we’re going out with the handheld then, yeah?” He checks, and Louis nods. They immediately slip back into the awkward silence, and Dan sighs. “Harry, I’m gonna do a walkthrough, you want to come with?” He asks, giving him a pointed look, and Harry nods, hefting his camera onto his shoulder and following Dan out of the room.

They start the walkthrough, but when they’re in a study in the south wing, Dan loses his patience.

“Right, what the hell is going on with Louis?” He demands, and Harry sighs, switching his camera off and sitting it down on the desk.

“If you haven’t figured it out, I can’t tell you. I can’t break his trust like that,” he tells him regretfully, and Dan sighs, running his hand through his hair.

“Max said the same thing. I just want to know what the hell I did wrong,” he groans, jumping as a voice pipes up from behind him.

“He’s in love with you, ye big numpty,” he spins around and finds a redheaded woman in a green dress standing by the window.

“I beg your pardon?” He chokes out, eyes wide, and she sighs in a long suffering way.

“The wee man, that’s what’s wrong with him. He’s in love with you, and he’s upset that you haven’t noticed,” she states clearly, speaking slowly, as if she thinks he’s a total idiot, and he’s starting to think she might be right.

He turns to Harry with wide eyes, silently asking for confirmation, until he remembers Harry can’t see or hear her.

“She reckons Louis’ in love with me,” he tells him, and Harry throws his arms up.

“Finally, he get’s it!” He cheers humourlessly and Dan gapes at him.

Finally, Dan’s brain puts everything together, and he takes off out of the room before Harry can stop him. He rushes back to the drawing room they’ve set up their base in, making everyone jump as he crashes through the door.

“So, there’s the spirit of a woman in the south wing who reckons you’re in love with me,” he announces as soon as his eyes find Louis, his confusion and stress clear in his voice.

“Smart one, she is. Smarter than you, anyway,” Louis replies acidly, turning back to what he was doing.

“Well, how the hell was I supposed to know?” Dan demands, still completely confused, and Josh snorts loudly.

“How could you not know?” He retorts, and Dan swings around to look at all of them, so confused he’s near tears.

“Well, some of us didn’t have the advantage of being told!” He insists, and they all laugh.

“He didn’t say a word to any of us, mate, we all figured it out on our own, because it was painfully obvious,” Chris enlightens him, and Dan throws his hands up.

“Well it wasn’t to me! Maybe if he’d said something, like a normal person!” He huffs, and they all wince. Dan doesn’t know why, until Louis spins around, eyes suspiciously bright.

“You didn’t say anything. I assume that means you’re not interested?” He tries to make his voice sound nonchalant, but it doesn’t really work.

“I’ve never even considered it!” His confused and frustrated tone of voice completely changes the inflection behind his statement, and it ends up sounding completely different from how he meant it to. Instead of the admission of obliviousness he’d meant it as, it ends up sounding like a rather harsh rejection instead, which is how Louis takes it.

Without a word, Louis rushes out of the room, and the others all glare at him.

“Nice, real nice. Couldn’t have been a bit nicer about it, could you?” Liam snarls, and Dan gapes in total confusion.

“What the fuck just happened? All I said was-”

“All you said was you’d never consider being interested in him, yeah, we know, you don’t have to keep saying it,” Niall spits, shoving past him harshly as he goes after Louis.

Dan looks at each of them and realises they’re all still glaring at him.

“Th-that’s not what I meant, I swear!” He insists, and Matt laughs harshly.

“How the fuck else could you have meant it?” He snaps, just as Harry comes into the room, looking worried.

“I meant I hadn’t considered it before, not that I never would!” Dan insists, and though they still look angry, they soften slightly.

“That’s really not how it sounded, mate,” Max informs him as Harry goes to Dan, rubbing his back comfortingly.

“What the fuck is going on?” Harry demands, and Dan sighs.

“Apparently, I accidentally rejected him, and now my head hurts,” he whines, and Harry pulls him into a hug.

“I’ll go talk to him for you, but he probably won’t listen,” Liam announces, traipsing out to go looking for Louis.

“Well, I guess it’s safe to say we’re not getting anything done tonight,” Chris sighs, and they all nod tiredly. 

They finish setting up, just in case, and Dan decides to finish his walkthrough with Harry. As they leave the drawing room, they notice Louis, Niall, and Liam sitting on the stairs. Louis looks miserable, Niall looks angry, and Liam looks frustrated, clearly, neither of them are listening to what he’s trying to tell them.

Dan makes a beeline for them, and Niall stands up, stepping in front of Louis defensively.

“Just fuck off, you’ve done enough damage, don’t you think?” He snaps, and Dan sighs.

“I didn’t mean it the way it came out, I swear,” he insists, and Liam sighs and stands up, tugging Niall’s arm.

“C’mon, let’s give them a minute,” he commands, ignoring Niall’s protests as he and Harry drag him away.

Dan sits on the stairs beside Louis, nudging him slightly with his elbow.

“How about we try having that conversation again?” He suggests, and Louis’ quiet for a moment, staring at his shoes.

“You didn’t say anything. I assume that means you’re not interested?” He finally repeats softly, and Dan smiles gently.

“I’ve never thought about it before. Give me a couple of days to think, and I’ll let you know, yeah?” He responds, and this time, it sounds how he means it to. Louis lifts his head and smiles slightly as he nods.

“Yeah, I can do that,” he answers, and Dan grins, then turns to look along the hallway.

“Don’t think I don’t know you’re there, you nosy old crone,” he calls cheerily, and the woman from the study steps out from the doorway she’d been hiding in.

“Well, I had to make sure you pair pulled your heads out your backsides, didn’t I?” She defends, turning and walking away as Dan laughs loudly. He turns back to Louis and finds him grinning slyly.

“God, you’re weird,” he mutters with teasing fondness, and Dan finally realises that, yeah, he’s an idiot.

They finally get some work done after that. Dan finally finishes his walkthrough while they’re filming the intro, then he and Louis take a handheld out into the grounds, though Niall, still angry for some reason, insists on going with them. After half an hour of walking around, with Niall making bitchy comments every time Dan opens his mouth, Louis rounds on him.

“What the hell is your problem?” He demands, and Niall laughs humourlessly.

“Let’s just say it was a bit hypocritical of you to get pissed off at him for not noticing,” he snaps, turning and marching back up to the house, leaving Louis looking bewildered.

“Am I the only person that actually says something when they like someone?” Dan asks incredulously, and Louis laughs slightly.

“Apparently,” he murmurs, still a little stunned.

They find the woman dressed in white soon after. She turns out to be a very nice old woman named Edith, who died in her sleep, and always loved the gardens. Dan has a lovely chat with her for a few minutes, and as they’re heading back up to the house, Louis informs him that he caught a big, bright light orb on the camera.

They all go exploring the house, looking for the redhead in green again. While they’re looking, Dan spots another woman, this one in a grey nurse’s uniform. He tries to talk to her, but she brushes him off.

“Can’t stop, the men need me! There is a war on, after all!” She trills as she sweeps past, and that’s that.

He finds the redhead in the study where he first saw her, and she’s very happy to talk to him. She tells him her name, Beth, and gives him all the information he could ever want about her life, and how she died. He mentions the nurse, and she laughs brightly.

“Oh, aye, old Florence has always been like that. Far as I know, she doesn’t realise that she’s dead, or that the war’s been over for a hundred years,” she announces, and Dan laughs.

“Is her name actually Florence, or are you just making fun of her?” He asks, and she snorts inelegantly.

“I wouldn’t know her name, she’s always too busy to talk to the likes of me,” she snarks, and Dan wisely changes the subject.

When they climb into the van the next morning, Louis sits in the seat in front of Dan’s unsurely. As soon as he notices, Dan sighs and sits up.

“Oh, for god’s sake,” he huffs, leaning over the back of the seat to grab Louis around the waist and drag him over it, lying back down and pulling Louis with him until he lies down willingly.

“Just ‘cause I can’t get my head sorted, doesn’t mean you have to act like a weirdo,” he insists, and that’s the end of that.


	2. Season 2 - England

**Arundel Castle**

They take a month off after filming the first season. Well, if the ratings are good, they’ll start filming after a month off, if not, the producers are going to cancel the show, so they’re all hoping they get a month off before going back to filming. Three days after they all go their separate ways and head home, Dan turns up on the doorstep of Louis’ mum’s house in Doncaster. He felt like he had to give Louis his answer in person, so he drove up from Surrey.

His answer is a yes, and an apology for being too much of an idiot to see it. They have a long talk about how to deal with Niall, and finally make a decision they hope he’ll be happy with, so when the ratings turn out to be fantastic, they’re loved up but nervous as they meet up with the rest of the crew to head to the first location in Sussex.

They meet up at the place they rent the van from, just off Piccadilly Circus. Dan has decided that he has to be the one to talk to Niall, so as they all clamber into the van, he subtly herds everyone into certain seats, so that it’s just him and Niall in the furthest back seat, and Louis is in the front passenger seat, obliviously chattering away to Chris while he drives.

He knows he only has about two hours to do this, so although he’s nervous as all hell, he doesn’t waste time. As soon as Niall realises who he’s sitting next to, he huffs moodily and pulls his Ipod from his pocket. Dan immediately snatches it out of his hand and twists in his seat so he’s turned towards Niall.

“We need to talk,” he insists, and Niall sighs.

“I know, but can you not let me be a jealous arsehole for just a little while longer?” He asks, and Dan shakes his head.

“Nope. Now, if I weren’t with Lou, and you weren’t in love with him, would I ever have a chance with you?” He asks bluntly, and Niall gapes at him for a minute.

“What are you trying to do?” He asks finally, and Dan grins.

“Make everyone happy, now answer the question,” he demands, and Niall stares at him warily for a few seconds, then sighs.

“Yeah, you definitely would, but that doesn’t really matter, does it? Just someone else I want and can’t have,” he tells him sadly, looking up in surprise when Dan takes his hand and squeezes.

“Actually, that’s why I’m asking. Louis and I were wondering if you’d go out with us,” he tells him softly, smiling at the stunned look on Niall’s face.

“I-um-yeah, of course I will,” he finally stammers, and Dan grins, kissing him quickly, then half standing to see over everyone’s heads.

“Lou!” He waits until Louis turns to look at him, and grins almost manically. “Mission accomplished!” He crows happily, the others all looking confused as Louis looks stunned.

“You talked to him without me?! Thanks, arsehole! But also, yay!” He calls back, stuck somewhere between annoyed and ecstatic, making Dan cackle loudly as he flops back down into his seat and throws his arm around Niall’s shoulders.

As they drive onto the grounds of Arundel Castle late in the afternoon, Dan’s happily squished between Niall and Louis. His good mood starts to fade, though, when he notices Niall’s mood dropping.

“You alright, love?” He asks softly, running his hand through Niall’s freshly bleached hair as he shrugs.

“Yeah, just worried,” he mumbles, catching Louis’ attention as well.

“It’s not because of Cawdor, is it? What happened up there is really rare, please don’t stress over it too much,” Dan begs, and Niall smiles grimly.

“I do still worry about that, but it wasn’t what I meant. You always seem totally exhausted after we spend the night in a location, a lot more than the rest of us, I’m just worried about how much it takes out of you,” he mumbles, and Louis nods.

“Yeah, that’s been worrying me, too,” he agrees, and Dan sighs, pulling them both closer to him.

“It’s not the talking to spirits that makes me tired. I always feel like, if I don’t do a good enough job, I’m letting everyone down, so I usually spend the whole night stressing about it. Didn’t you notice that I wasn’t anywhere near as tired after Airth as I usually am? I had so much fun playing tag with them, I didn’t stress myself out at all,” he explains, and they both nod as they realise he’s right.

“In that case, I’m promoting myself. My official job title is now ‘medium relaxation specialist’. Max will just have to research on his own,” Niall announces, grinning smugly as Dan laughs loudly.

The atmosphere as they set up is totally different from the last time they were all together. There’s no tension, and they’re all talking happily, catching up with each other.

“So, did you guys actually watch the show when it aired?” Harry asks, and they all turn to Dan as he groans.

“My mum and sister made me watch it with them. I never told them about Cawdor, so they gave me a hell of a talking to when they saw it. Sarah threatened to beat me to death at least a dozen times,” he explains, and they’re all stuck between wanting to be sympathetic and laughing.

“We watched it. I never noticed at the time, but when we were playing tag, the handheld picked up the kids as light orbs. It looked brilliant. My mum wants to kill me now, though. All my sisters have decided they’re going to be ghost hunters when they grow up,” Louis announces with a grin, and they all laugh as they nod in agreement.

When they’d first started the show, most of their families had thought it was weird. Wandering around dark, creepy buildings, taking Dan’s word for it that there are ghosts. They’d started to warm up to the idea after seeing the light orbs in Mary King’s Close, but they’d all been in awe when they’d seen the footage from the handheld. It would have been good anyway, watching seven grown men sprinting around playing tag, totally carefree, but the light show the kids gave was amazing. The fact that the handheld’s microphone picked up the giggling helped, too. Even their most sceptical family members couldn’t argue with disembodied giggling.

The spirits are quiet and wary that night. Dan can sense them, and sees them from the corner of his eye quite a few times, flitting through the shadows, but any time he tries to approach them, they skitter away. Niall had been partly serious earlier. He still researches with Max when Dan senses a few details, but mostly, he focuses on keeping Dan relaxed, pulling faces and telling stupid jokes to make him smile, frequently rubbing his back and reminding him that they all know he’s doing his best, that it’s not his fault if they don’t want to talk.

It works, and Dan stays somewhat relaxed. Finally, just when they’re considering giving up for the night, they wander through the library, and Dan sighs and smiles.

“Hello,” he calls softly, and they all stop, Chris keeping his camera on Dan, Liam turning his to where Dan’s looking.

“What d’you see?” Josh asks softly, not wanting to disturb him.

“A man in blue, looks Elizabethan, maybe Jacobean, really well dressed, he’s ignoring me, though,” he replies, taking a few steps closer. “It’s ok, I just want to talk. It’s alright if you don’t want to,” he announces gently, waiting a moment, then turning back to them with a sigh as he shakes his head. “He’s gone,” he mumbles, managing a small smile when Niall rubs his back reassuringly.

Dan’s quiet as they pack up and pile into the van. He’s not as stressed or tired as he usually is, but he’s not his usual cheery self, either. Niall lies down on one of the seats, pulling Dan down onto his chest. As soon as Dan’s settled, Louis gently settles on his back. He makes a soft noise, wordlessly asking Niall if he’s alright with their weight on him. Niall hums happily, and Louis relaxes, both of them focusing on Dan. Niall guides Dan’s head so his face is nuzzled against his neck, fingers playing with his hair, and Louis presses his face between Dan’s shoulder blades, his fingers slipping under Dan’s t-shirt to trace light patterns on his skin. They both smile as Dan groans softly, the tension melting out of him as he sinks into sleep.

**50 Berkeley Square**

The three of them sleep solidly until just after five that evening. Matt wakes Louis and Dan with a quick shake, unfazed when they glare at him.

“Don’t give me that look, your weight’s getting too much for Niall, listen to him,” he scolds, and they both turn to focus on Niall. They frown as they notice the deep wheeze that rattles from his chest each time he breathes in, and Dan reaches out, shaking Niall gently.

When one bright blue eye cracks open blearily, Dan smiles worriedly.

“You alright, love?” He asks softly, and Niall nods.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine in a minute,” he rasps, groping tiredly along the floor until he finds his bag, and they both help him sit up as he pulls a deep green inhaler from a side pocket.

They watch quietly as he takes several puffs from it, relaxing slightly each time his breathing eases, until he slots the cap back on, wheeze totally gone.

“There, all better,” he smiles, trying to ease their frowns.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Louis asks, but Dan butts in before Niall can answer.

“Why the hell would you let both of us lie on top of you all day without telling us it would fuck with your health?” He demands, and Niall shrugs.

“I didn’t say anything because it’s not that bad, and I knew you’d fuss about it when you didn’t need to. And I let you lie on me all day because I didn’t really think about it. You were stressed and you needed us, the asthma never even crossed my mind,” he explains, and they both sigh. They can’t really argue with his reasoning.

“Do you at least keep an inhaler with you all the time? I know you said it’s not that bad, but…” Louis trails off worriedly, and Niall nods with a small smile.

“Of course I do. It’s gotten a little bit worse lately, all these old buildings full of dust, so I always have one in my bag. It’s still nothing to worry about, though,” he insists, seeing the look on their faces, and they relax again.

They arrived at the next location hours ago, so they follow the others out of the van and start unloading the gear. As they’re piling everything up on the doorstep, Niall coughs and wheezes a few times and has to use his inhaler again.

“Why the hell didn’t we do this one first? We’re ten minutes away from where we picked up the bloody van,” he grouses, still wheezing slightly, grumpily shrugging Liam’s hand from his back.

“What the hell’s his problem?” Josh asks no-one in particular, making sure Niall’s well out of earshot.

“He forgot to mention that he has asthma, all the exhaust and pollution is playing havoc with it,” Dan explains softly as he passes with an armful of gear, which Josh immediately takes from him.

“Niall! Can you go in and start the walkthrough with Dan? I’ve heard some bad stuff about the spirits in this place, I don’t want anyone going anywhere alone,” he announces, and Niall nods, traipsing over to them as Dan gives Josh a grateful smile.

Once the two of them have gone inside, Harry leans on the fence beside Josh.

“Have you actually heard anything, or did you just want to get him inside?” He asks, and Josh shrugs.

“I read a few reports of people being literally scared to death by the spirits in there, but whether they’re true or not… I still don’t want anyone going anywhere alone tonight,” he insists, and they all nod in agreement.

They all freeze as they hear Niall’s panicked voice.

“Shit! Guys! Need some help here, quick!” They all dart into the house, and find them halfway along the hall. Niall’s leaning against the wall, wheezing harshly as he supports all of Dan’s weight. He’s slumped over Niall’s shoulders, eyes half open and glassy, skin waxy and pale. “I dunno what happened, he was fine one second, then… I barely caught him in time,” Niall rasps as Chris and Louis lift Dan’s weight off of him.

They slowly lower Dan until he’s sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall. They both kneel in front of him, and a thought occurs to Louis that makes him choke.

“Is-is he breathing?” He gasps out, and Niall nods surely.

“He is. I was worried, ‘cause his breathing sounded worse than mine,” it’s not exactly reassuring, but it’s something.

They all talk to him for several minutes, trying to get any kind of response from him. They’re about to give up and take him to the hospital, when he takes a shuddering gasp of a breath and his eyes flutter open.

“Thank fuck! What the hell was that?” Josh demands, gripping Dan’s shoulder worriedly as he looks around with a slightly dazed expression.

“She… She was showing me something,” he murmurs distractedly, but it doesn’t really reassure them.

“Is this like Cawdor? Do we need to leave?” Harry asks quickly, thinking of what Josh told him about the house earlier. Dan shakes his head, then closes his eyes and whines softly as the action makes his head swim.

“No, she just wanted me to listen,” he whispers, desperately fighting the vomit he can feel climbing his throat. He tries to stand, but his legs won’t support him. “Help me get outside, quick,” he gasps, and Louis grabs him, hefting him up and dragging him through the door just in time as he leans over the fence and vomits violently on the grass.

He feels a lot steadier when he’s done, managing to stand on his own, but still staggering slightly as Louis wraps his arm around his waist and helps him walk back into the house.

“I don’t think we should do this tonight,” Matt comments worriedly, but Dan shakes his head.

“I’m alright. I’ll be fine in a minute. She just… Took me by surprise, is all. I just need a minute,” he insists, stumbling past them to the lounge they were planning on setting up base in. 

They follow him into the room as he slumps down in an old armchair, making a soft grateful noise as Niall gives him a bottle of water, then sits on the arm of the chair and starts running his fingers through Dan’s hair, ignoring the sweat matting it. Dan closes his eyes and leans his head against Niall’s side, sipping from the bottle and enjoying the feeling of Niall’s fingers in his hair for a few minutes.

When he finally opens his eyes, feeling a lot better, he finds them all sitting around him, watching him worriedly.

“I’m fine, I promise,” he insists with a slight laugh, and Max nods solemnly.

“You do look a lot better, but I’m still not sure about doing this tonight,” he worries, and Dan sighs.

“I want to do this tonight. I’m worried about Niall. I just want to get this place and the tower done and get out of the city as soon as possible. I feel totally fine now, so can we just get on with it?” He practically begs, turning pleading eyes on each of them in turn until they all nod reluctantly.

“All right, if you’re sure. The very second you start feeling off, though, you tell us, and we get out of here, alright?” Louis bargains sternly, and Dan nods happily, standing easily.

“Excellent, let’s get moving, then,” he chirps, practically skipping to where they left the gear by the front door.

Within an hour, though, his good mood has vanished.

“All of the spirits in here are stark raving mad, they’re all just running around screaming at the top of their lungs, and they’re giving me a migraine, can we just pack up and go?” He sighs, and they all nod, Niall and Josh walking back out to the van with him while the others sort everything out.

**Tower of London**

It’s only just after midnight when they leave Mayfair, and they’re only twenty minutes from the tower, so they phone Steven, and he manages to convince the night guard to let them in a night early, so they can get both locations done in one night and get out of the city first thing in the morning.

They set up one of the cameras and a boom first, so they can film the intro outside while the rest of them sort out the rest of the gear.While they’re setting up, Harry lets out an odd choked cough, and they all turn to him, squinting suspiciously at the sheepish look he’s giving them.

“Um… I might have forgotten I bought these,” he mumbles, holding up four small voice recorders. “I heard they were good for picking up EVP, so I got a couple, then… Kinda forgot about them,” he adds, cheering up as they laugh slightly.

“Don’t worry about it, mate, it’s fine,” Max snorts, taking them from him and sitting them down on a table by the door, where they won’t forget them.

As soon as they start walking through the tower, Dan stops and shivers.

“Alright?” Someone mumbles, and he nods, giving himself a shake.

“Yeah, just… A headless woman just wandered past. Creeped me out a bit, is all,” he mutters, forcing himself to start walking again.

As they get to the bottom of a staircase, Dan grabs one of the voice recorders from Louis and switches it on.

“Evening, ladies!” He calls cheerily to the group of women as they stroll past, and they all stop chattering to each other and turn to him.

“Good evening, dear! How are you?” One of them asks happily, and he grins.

“Much better for having met such beautiful women, and yourselves?” He responds, grinning wider at their flustered giggling.

“We’re wonderful, thank you, dear. Must be off, we’ll be late for tea!” One of them giggles, then they all scuttle off, still giggling amongst themselves.

“Were you just flirting with ghosts?” Josh asks incredulously as Dan turns off the voice recorder and hands it to him.

“I was being polite, thank you very much,” Dan huffs, jokingly turning his nose up at him.

“God, you’re weird,” Louis mutters teasingly as he shoves past, making Dan grin widely as he follows.

The rest of the walk through the tower goes more or less alright. They encounter the headless woman again, and they have to watch helplessly as Dan stands frozen, freaked out and flinching as her icy hands feel up his arms and across his face, before she finally pats him on the shoulder and strolls away. They spend most of the night following him as he tries to locate three voices, one of a woman screaming for help, and two boys whimpering, but he never does find them.

When they leave the tower as the sun’s coming up, most of them settle down to sleep. Louis is driving, and Matt’s listening to the sound recordings from the night. They’ve just left the city when Matt disturbs the silence.

“Oh my fucking god,” they all sit up, Louis glancing in the rearview mirror curiously as Matt taps at his laptop quickly, then yanks his headphones out of the port. “You guys have got to hear this,” he announces breathlessly, turning the volume up all the way, then pressing play. It’s the recording of Dan’s conversation with the group of women, and the recorder picked up everything. Including something even Dan didn’t hear.

“Wait, wait, go back ten seconds,” Harry demands, and Matt complies. They all hear it this time, but none of them can figure out the low rumbling.

“Hang on, let me isolate and magnify it,” Matt mumbles, and after a few minutes of tapping and quiet cursing, he plays it again, and this time, the harsh, growling voice rings through the van clearly.

“Just wait… Just wait… As soon as I get that mouthy little slut on his own, he’s mine… Just wait…” None of them can move, can barely breath, when they hear it, and it loops twice more before Niall manages to throw his hand out and silence it.

“Did… Did you hear that when we were there?” Liam asks slowly, and they all turn to Dan as Louis stops in the carpark of a service station, practically throwing himself out of the van, leaving the door wide open as he walks away, back tense.

“You really think I would’ve stayed in that fucking place if I’d heard that?” Dan asks, stunned, then climbs over the seats to go after Louis.

They all follow him over to the small patch of grass where Louis is standing, hands trembling as he lights a cigarette.

“He meant me,” he mumbles, smoke streaming out of his mouth.

“What?” Josh asks as they all stop, eyes wide as Louis shrugs robotically and leaves the cigarette dangling between his lips, crossing his arms over his chest defensively.

“The whole time we were there, I kept feeling something touching me, and just… I was completely terrified, and I couldn’t figure out why, just… This really threatened feeling. He meant me,” he explains, voice shaky, ignoring his half finished cigarette as it falls from his trembling lips, and Dan and Niall rush to him, sandwiching him between them as they mumble soothingly to him. The others soon join them, ignoring the strange looks they’re getting from the few other early morning travellers as they try to make Louis feel better.

When he calms down, they get back in the van, Dan driving this time, Louis and Niall staying in the front seat with him.

“Well, that’s one more place to add to the list of ‘places I am never fucking going to ever again’,” Dan announces grimly, smiling when Louis laughs. “So, Essex, then?”

**Severalls Hospital**

The hospital is in the middle of nowhere. When they get out of the van late in the afternoon, Niall throws his arms wide and takes an exaggerated deep breath.

“Ah, smell that clean, country air!” He crows, laughing when Max coughs behind him.

“It stinks of cow shit,” he argues, and Niall turns to him with a grin, arms still outstretched.

“Exactly! It’s great, isn’t it?” He asks happily, cackling loudly at the baffled look Max gives him. Dan nudges Max with his elbow as he passes.

“It’s the first time he’s been able to breathe properly in two days, if he’s happy about cow shit, who are we to argue?” He laughs, making Max snort.

They’re filming the intro outside as the sun sets, and they’re just about done when Dan interrupts with a soft, startled little ‘oh’. They all turn to him, and find him leaning against the side of the van, staring up at the building with a shocked, slightly scared look on his face. Niall goes to him, touching his arm gently.

“What’s wrong?” He asks quietly, turning to look where Dan is, but not seeing anything.

“They’re all staring at me. They won’t stop staring,” Dan whispers hoarsely, eyes restlessly scanning the windows of the hospital.

“It’s ok, they’re just curious, they can’t hurt you,” Niall tries, and it seems to work. Dan finally tears his eyes away from the windows, turning to Niall with a shaky smile and a nod.

“We can wait a while to do this if you want? Find somewhere to park in Colchester and try again in a couple of days?” Josh offers sympathetically, and Dan smiles gratefully, but shakes his head.

“No, no, it’s alright, I’m fine. They just… Scared the shit out of me a little bit, but I’m alright,” he reassures them, and although they’re not entirely convinced, they take his word for it.

When they go inside, Dan freezes on the doorstep.

“You guys reckoned the handhelds and the voice recorders were better at picking up activity, right?” He asks, and Liam nods. “You might want to get them out,” he suggests, and Josh is just about to ask why, but then he sees the way Dan’s eyes are looking everywhere, and he understands. There’s a shit-tonne of activity here, and it’s just as fascinated by them as they are by it.

They take his advice, quickly pulling out the two handhelds and four voice recorders. Josh and Louis take a camera each, and Louis takes the leftover voice recorder after Harry hands them out to Dan, Niall, and Max.

“Are they saying much, or are the voice recorders just in case?” Chris asks curiously, and Dan nods.

“They’re all talking, thankfully, it’s not too loud. They’re all talking over each other, though, so I can’t really make out any of it,” he relays, and Chris nods, slowly sweeping his camera around the room, just in case it catches something.

He tries talking to a few of them, and quickly realises that the reason he can’t make out any of what any of them are saying is because it’s gibberish. When he announces this, Niall does some quick Googling and informs him that it’s probably because far too many patients received lobotomies and electroshock against their will.

Since he can’t find anyone to have a proper conversation with, they spend the night walking the halls, filming every inch of the hospital, in case the cameras or the booms and voice recorders pick anything up. 

When they get into the van in the morning, none of them are really ready to sleep, so they hang about, talking happily while Matt, Harry, Liam, and Chris comb over everything from the night.

After a while, Josh sits up straight and clears his throat loudly.

“Right, fuck it. I’m taking a leaf out of Dan’s book,” he announces, and even Dan looks confused. Josh ignores the rest of them and locks eyes with Max. “I really fuckin’ like you. Wanna go out with me?” He asks bluntly, and Max grins.

“Fuckin’ took you long enough! Fuckin’ right, I will,” he answers just as bluntly, and they all whoop, wolf-whistling and jeering jokingly.

“See! This is what I was talking about! What the fuck was hard about that?” Dan demands over them all, laughing as Niall grabs the collar of his t-shirt.

“Oh, shut up, ya idiot,” he grins, then kisses him hard, intensifying the whistling and jeering around them.

They break apart as everyone calms down, and Chris grins.

“If anyone’s interested, we got a shitload of stuff on camera and with the audio last night,” he tells them, and they all turn towards the row of laptops the four of them have been working on, only to find Harry and Liam kissing furiously.

“Took them long enough. Oi, you two! Either get the fuck out of the way, or give it a rest, we’re tryin’ to see some fuckin’ ghosts!” Louis shouts jokingly, and the two of them break apart, blushing darkly.

“Right, ghosts, yeah, we can do that,” Liam mumbles sheepishly, turning to the laptops.

The four of them have already queued up the relevant files, so all they have to do is press play. Liam and Chris play the footage from their cameras and the handhelds, showing them the dozens of light orbs and shadows flitting all around the hospital. Once they’re done, Harry and Matt let them hear the audio recordings, full of whispering voices.

“We saved this one for last. It’s a lot clearer, and more coherent than the rest of them,” Matt announces, and Harry grins.

“And kinda creepy. Thankfully not in the ‘going to kill you and wear your skin’ way we’ve been getting lately,” he adds, a little surprised but still pleased when even Louis laughs. “Did one of you put a voice recorder down at some point?” He adds, and Dan nods and waves his hand slightly.

“Yeah, I did. It was getting a bit much for me, so I found a room with no-one in it, dumped the recorder on a table and took a couple of minutes to myself, why?” He explains, and Harry and Matt nod.

“We thought so. We didn’t have to isolate the voice at all, so we figured you’d moved away from everyone and sat it down,” Matt replies, then leans over and hits play.

It starts with their own muffled voices and Dan’s footsteps, then a soft thud as he sets it down. More footsteps, then a bump as he sits on the floor. It’s quiet for a minute, then a soft, feminine voice starts talking.

“Hello. The big, kind man who listens to us can’t hear me, but I think this thing can. I think it’s because of the others, they talk so much, I can understand why he’d block us out for a little while. I think it’s a very nice thing he does, travelling to all the places full of people who can’t be heard anymore, and listens to them. It’s very sweet. My name’s Lorelai, I’m here because I accidentally killed my baby. I wonder if he’s somewhere, trying to find someone to listen to him. I hope not. It’s lonely, even here, with so many people. They make sense sometimes, but not often. Oh, the kind man is coming back for his listening device, I better go.” 

They get what Harry meant. It’s innocent and sweet, but it has a kind of creepy vibe to it. Josh thinks it might be the slightly sharp, not entirely sane edge to Lorelai’s voice, but he’s not sure.

“Can you really do that? Block them out?” Louis asks curiously, and Dan nods.

“Yeah, and thank god I can, I think I’d go mad if I couldn’t. It’s kinda like switching a radio on and off, but if the dial on the radio was massive and it exhausted you to turn it,” he explains, and they frown worriedly. “It’s not as bad as it sounds, and I don’t do it very often, so stop looking at me like that,” he reassures them, and they relax.

“So, is that why you didn’t hear her? ‘Cause you were blocking them out?” Max asks, and Dan nods.

“There were so many voices, and they were all talking constantly, even when I went into an empty room, I could still hear them all. I just needed it to be quiet for a few minutes,” he explains quietly, not noticing Niall frowning at him until he smacks him on the back of the head. “Ow! Shit, what the fuck was that for?!” He yelps, glaring at Niall reproachfully as he rubs the sore spot, but Niall just glares back.

“How many fucking times do we have to tell you before it’ll sink into that fucking thick skull of yours? _Tell us when you get overwhelmed so we can help!_ ” He snarls, and Dan curls in on himself a little, knowing this isn’t a fight he can win.

“I know, I know. I just… I’m so used to keeping my mouth shut, ‘cause most people think it’s weird. I’m still getting used to being able to tell people about it, ok?” He defends, but it doesn’t lessen the unimpressed frowns they’re all giving him.

“From now on, at least one person checks how he’s doing, every hour, on the hour, while we’re in a location, yeah?” Josh bites out, and they all murmur in agreement.

“Alright, I’ll just… I’ll drive for a while, yeah?” Dan mumbles, starting to stand, but Niall and Louis both grab the back of his t-shirt and pull him back down.

“You just admitted to doing something that totally exhausts you, not once, but twice, and you think we’re going to let you drive?! Lie the fuck down and go to fucking sleep,” Louis snarls, and Dan nods meekly, doing as he’s told.

He lies down facing the back of the seat, curling up and hugging himself. He gets why they’re angry, but that doesn’t stop him being upset about it. A few minutes later, Louis worms his way between Dan and the back of the seat, forcing him to uncurl and pulling Dan’s arms around himself.

“Thought you were pissed off at me?” Dan mumbles sadly, and Louis sighs, playing with the short hairs at the back of Dan’s neck.

“Not pissed off, well, kind of, but not entirely at you. We’re mostly pissed off at ourselves for not noticing. And a tiny bit at you for not telling us. We’re just worried. We worry about you anyway, and then you keep shit like this to yourself. We just want to be able to help you,” Louis mumbles, wriggling closer as Dan squeezes him tightly.

“I know, I don’t do it on purpose. I’m trying, I really am, I promise,” he whispers, and Louis nods.

“I know, that’s why we’re not really pissed off at you. Now hold me a little tighter, I’m still a bit freaked about that voice in the tower,” he admits, and Dan goes from vulnerable to overprotective in a heartbeat, holding Louis as tightly as he can without hurting him, burying his face in Louis’ hair as he murmurs comfortingly to him. He falls asleep that way a few minutes later, snoring softly as Louis gives Niall a smug grin over his shoulder.

“Told you I could take his mind off it and get him to go to sleep,” he whispers triumphantly, and Niall smothers a laugh.

“Dunno what you’re so smug about, I was rooting for you the whole way, babe,” he laughs softly, grinning fondly when Louis just looks even more smug.

**Deane Road Cemetery**

It’s a four and a half hour drive to Liverpool, and Dan sleeps solidly the whole way, and another ten hours after that. They’re starting to worry, when he wakes up from fifteen hours of dead sleep with a sleepy noise and a stretch, the long series of cracks emitting from his joints making him groan.

“Feel better?” Niall asks lightly, rubbing Dan’s ankle with a relieved smile. Dan hadn’t moved an inch in about three hours, and he was starting to get really worried, to the point where he’d actually been lightly pinching Dan’s ankle just before he woke up, in the hope of making him move.

Dan doesn’t answer, still mostly asleep. Niall waits a few minutes, until he’s sitting up and looks a little less bleary eyed, and repeats his question.

“Mhm, was I out for a while?” He asks, voice still slightly slurred with sleep, and Niall laughs slightly.

“If you consider nearly sixteen hours ‘a while’, yeah,” he informs him, and Dan snorts.

“We in Liverpool?” He asks as Louis, Josh, Liam, and Harry climb into the van.

“Thank fuck, I was starting to think he’d died,” Josh comments, grabbing a questionable looking sandwich from the top of a pile of stuff on the floor and taking a bite.

“Yeah, we’re in Liverpool, have been for ages. We’ve got everything set up, we were just waiting to see if you’d wake up before we committed to filming tonight,” Niall answers Dan, ignoring Josh with a mildly disgusted look as he grimaces and spits his mouthful back into the packet.

“Right, give me half an hour to wake up, and we’ll get to it,” Dan nods, and the five of them look at each other doubtfully.

“You sure you’re up to it tonight, mate?” Liam asks, and Dan sighs, but rather than immediately insisting he is, he stops and thinks about it for a minute.

“I’m not totally sure. I’m still tired, but that could be because I’ve only just woken up. I’ll take some time, make some tea and get something to eat, let myself wake up a bit more, then I’ll see how I feel,” he concedes, and they beam at him.

The thing with Deane Street Cemetery is that the activity isn’t actually in the cemetery, it affects the whole street. There are a few privately owned houses that aren’t being lived in, though, so the producers contacted the owners of a few of them, and one of them agreed to let them into the property for a night.

The owner is sitting at the kitchen table with Max and Matt when Louis leads Dan into the room, and Dan bites his lip.

“Have you been waiting for me? I’m sorry,” he mumbles, but the older gentleman waves him off with an easy smile.

“No, no, don’t worry yourself! These fine boys have just finished interviewing me about the property. I was hoping to meet everyone before I left, so we’ve been having some tea,” he reassures him, and Dan sighs in relief as he starts to move towards the kettle. Louis waves him into a seat instantly, and he complies, letting Louis flit around making tea and some food.

“So, we filming tonight, then?” Matt asks as Louis sets a mug of tea and a sandwich in front of Dan, then sits down beside him.

“Not sure yet. I feel a lot better, but I’m waiting ‘til I’ve woken up a bit and had something to eat before I commit to anything,” Dan tells him, taking a massive bite of his sandwich as Matt and Max grin at him.

Once he’s done eating, they continue their chat with the owner, Paul, and once he’s gone, Dan sits quietly for a few minutes while they all crowd around the table and start planning how they want the night to go. Finally, he nods to himself and clears his throat to get their attention.

“Right, I’m absolutely sure now, I’m good to go for tonight,” he tells them, and this time, they don’t doubt him.

They already filmed the intro while they were waiting for him to wake up, so they get right to it. They do a walkthrough, and Dan doesn’t see anyone, but he does hear screaming and scratching, and when they’re leaving one of the bedrooms, Josh barely manages to avoid being hit by the door as it slams closed on its own. When they head back down to the kitchen for a break, they find the table upside down and the chairs stacked haphazardly.

“Why don’t you come and talk to me, instead of playing with the furniture?” Dan calls out, and he’s answered by giggling. They try to follow it, but it echoes through the whole house, and he can’t pinpoint it.

The whole night goes the same way, plenty of evidence of activity; more furniture being rearranged, more giggling and screaming, and scratches in the walls that the others hear, too; but none of them will come and talk to him. Around half three, Dan pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs.

“I think I need to go outside for a few minutes,” he mumbles, and they all stop.

“You alright?” Harry asks, and Dan shrugs as they herd him outside.

“Yeah, it’s just… For every noise you guys hear, I’ve got ten more inside my head, it’s just getting a bit much,” he tells them as he leans against the low wall surrounding the garden, taking a deep breath of cold air. Louis lights a cigarette, and Dan focuses on him, timing his own breathing with the rhythmic suck, inhale, exhale, and finds himself feeling better a lot faster than he’d expected. He gives himself another few minutes after Louis drops the finished cigarette and steps on it, then nods slowly. “Ok, I’m good,” he announces, and Liam opens his mouth to question him, then thinks better of it, nodding and following Dan back into the house.

The second Dan steps back into the house, a feeling of certainty hits him.

“The basement,” his mouth forms the words on its own, and Josh turns to him, looking confused.

“What about it?” He asks, but Dan doesn’t seem to hear him. He has to repeat his question twice more, then shake Dan gently before he hears him.

“I need to be in the basement,” he insists, striding towards the door without any further explanation.

They follow him down into the basement, stopping halfway down the stairs. He’s standing in the middle of the room, paint cans and tools and god knows what else flying through the air around him, bouncing off the walls, the ceiling, and more than once, they hit Dan. He doesn’t seem to care, or even notice, standing with his eyes closed and a content smile.

“Dan, come on, it’s not safe down here, we’ve got to get out,” Josh calls to him, but Dan waves him off, still smiling to himself.

“For fuck’s sake,” Niall growls, weaving through everyone, ducking down and running to Dan, doing his best to avoid the projectiles flying through the air.

It takes a bit of struggling, but he eventually manages to drag Dan over to the stairs, and he and Louis pull Dan up the stairs as he pulls against them. When they’re back up on the ground floor, and Matt slams the basement door closed, Dan stumbles, shakes himself, then looks around in confusion.

“What the fuck was that?!” Louis snarls, hands balling into fists. Dan blinks for a moment, still trying to clear the fog from his mind, until he can make sense of his surroundings again.

“I… I’m not sure. I came back in, and I just… _knew_ I had to be in the basement. When I got down there, I could hear singing in my head, but it was like I wasn’t in my head anymore…. Does that make sense?” He tries to explain, but they look baffled.

“That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever,” Louis insists, but Josh raises his hand.

“I think it kind of does. I think he means like a kind of out of body experience,” he tries, and Dan nods enthusiastically.

“Exactly, it was like I wasn’t here anymore, but I knew I was,” he adds, but Louis, and most of the others, still look baffled. “It was kind of like I was dreaming, but I was still awake,” he tries, and they look as though they understand a bit better.

“So, where were you?” Louis asks, and Dan’s face scrunches up as he thinks, but he shakes his head.

“I can’t really remember now. All I remember is hearing the singing and feeling happy, really peaceful, y’know?” He mumbles, and they nod.

“And you didn’t even notice you were being pelted with paint cans and chisels and shit?” Max asks with a slight laugh, and Dan frowns.

“No… Is that why I feel like I’ve had the shit kicked out of me?” He asks, rubbing his side, and they nod.

“Yeah, it was fucking creepy, you were just standing there, looking all pleased with yourself, while the whole fucking room tried to kill you,” Max tells him, frowning uncomfortably.

“Eh, comes with the territory,” Dan shrugs off. They finish up soon after, and they have breakfast while they wait for Paul to come back and lock up behind them.

Dan dreams of something that makes him smile blissfully in his sleep, but can’t remember what when he wakes up. It unnerves them, worries them that something’s latched onto him, but he shrugs it off, reassuring them that it’s just his mind trying to form connections to whatever it is he can’t remember, and they relax.

The producers want them to take a longer break this time, before they start filming the next season. They disagree, wanting to only take a week or so off. They end up compromising, and take a month off, same as last time. Despite all the nightmare-inducing stuff that’s happened to them filming the first two seasons, by the time their month off is over, they’re itching to get back to it.


	3. Season 3 - Wales

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, I got a bit stuck in a few places. Also, this chapter is kind of all over the place, but fuck it.

**Denbigh Asylum**

When they meet up to start filming again, there’s a lot of happiness and love going around. All of their relationships are still going strong, despite spending so much time squashed together in a tiny van with the others, and the first thing Matt says when he climbs in is that he finally asked out Chris, so they only add to the atmosphere. The only thing that causes a slight dip in the mood is when Dan checks their schedule, and groans loudly.

“S’matter?” Niall grunts distractedly from the driver’s seat, and Dan sighs, waving the schedule around.

“First location’s an abandoned asylum. I fucking hate asylums,” he whines, and they all make sympathetic noises, Josh slinging his arm around Dan’s shoulders and pulling him into a sideways hug.

As soon as they climb out of the van outside of the asylum that evening, Dan lets out a defeated sigh.

“Gonna be a tough night?” Chris asks sympathetically, and Dan nods.

“I can hear the wailing already,” he sighs, but still takes an armful of gear from Josh and carries it inside.

They’re just about finished setting up when Dan decides he’s had enough. He growls under his breath and strides out into the middle of the entrance hall.

“Enough! There is no damn need for all that noise! Stop it this instant!” He roars, the rest of them nervously realising they’ve never seen Dan truly angry, and as Louis quietly mumbles, he’s still not truly angry, even now, and they seriously hope they never see it. Dan pauses for a minute, then nods to himself and goes back to their base room. “Thank god that worked, I was getting a migraine from hell with that racket,” he sighs with a small smile, totally unaware of the slight wariness they’re all now feeling towards him.

They start the walkthrough soon after. The wander the labyrinthine corridors for over an hour, until Dan stops with a frown.

“It’s weird, there were loads of them earlier, now the place seems empty,” he murmurs, and Josh laughs slightly.

“Maybe you terrified them all into hiding when you got angry earlier,” he hints, and Dan looks confused.

“When was I angry?” He asks and Josh snorts incredulously.

“Um, maybe when you did an impression of a fucking dragon?” He laughs, and Dan frowns.

“I wasn’t angry. C’mon, I think I hear some of them,” he brushes off, turning and walking towards the voices, oblivious to the looks of surprise and slight nervousness the others are giving each other.

“He wasn’t even angry? Jesus fucking Christ…” Liam mumbles as they follow Dan. No-one says anything else, wanting to just forget the whole thing.

When they catch up to him, he’s standing in the middle of a room that looks like it used to be a ward. He’s holding one of the voice recorders and talking happily with someone. When he’s done, he turns to them with a pleased smile.

“Just found a very lovely woman, Rhiannon. She used to be a nurse here. Didn’t have a lot to say about the hospital itself, but she was happy to tell me loads about herself and the patients. By the sounds of it, I’m better off looking for more staff, she reckons the patients won’t be up to talking very much,” he tells them, smile dropping slightly as he notices the way they nod warily.

He finds a few more doctors and nurses, and they’re the same, either they don’t know much about the hospital itself, or they don’t want to talk about it, telling him mostly about themselves, and gossiping about the patients and other staff members.

They finish up and pack up the gear, everyone still quiet and slightly wary of Dan, and now he definitely notices. They finish loading the gear and go around to climb into the van, only to find Dan blocking the door, scowling.

“We’re not fucking moving until someone tells me what the fuck is going on,” he snarls, getting angrier as he notices a few of them step back slightly.

“What… I don’t know what you mean, love,” Louis tries, gulping as Dan turns angry eyes on him, growling softly.

“You know exactly what I fucking mean. Tell me,” he hisses, voice soft but no less dangerous.

“You’re fucking terrifying when you’re mildly irritated, so now we’re scared shitless of making you genuinely angry. There, I said it,” Louis rushes out, unable to bear the weight of Dan’s glare anymore.

Dan’s shocked speechless for a few seconds, then holds his hand out.

“Give me the keys,” he demands, surprising them.

“D’you think it’s a good idea to drive when you’re-”

“Give me the fucking keys!” He booms, cutting off Max mid sentence and making them all flinch. Niall quickly digs the keys from his pocket and tosses them to Dan, who grabs them and spins around. “Get in the fucking van,” he snaps, walking around the van and climbing into the driver’s seat as they pile in the side door without question.

He drives in silence for about twenty miles, then pulls into a service station. As soon as the van is parked, he turns in his seat and holds his hand out to Louis.

“Give me a cigarette,” he demands shortly, and Louis’ hand is halfway back out of his pocket when he realises.

“You don’t smoke,” he comments, and Dan scowls.

“Just give me the damn thing,” he snaps, and Louis complies, handing him the whole packet and his lighter.

As soon as his hand closes around them, he turns without a word and climbs out of the van, standing beside it as he lights a cigarette. Louis, Niall, Max, and Josh climb out after him, Louis carefully asking for his cigarettes back so he can take one too. They stand in tense silence for a few minutes, Dan, Louis, and Max smoking while Josh and Niall look around awkwardly, trying to think of something to say. Finally, Dan holds up his half smoked cigarette.

“Five years. Five years I’ve been off these damn things, so… Thanks a fucking lot,” he bites out, then takes a long drag as the four of them tense.

“Do… D’you wanna talk about it?” Niall asks hesitantly, and Dan laughs bitterly.

“Yeah, I really want to talk about how neither of my boyfriends, or any of my best friends fucking trust me. Let’s have a nice, long conversation about that,” he snaps, dropping his finished cigarette and stepping on it with more force than necessary before climbing back into the van.

They climb back in with him, but Louis climbs into the front seat and leans over Dan, taking the keys out of the ignition, then turns and throws them to Niall, who passes them back until Harry has them in the furthest back seat.

“Why do you think we don’t trust you?” Louis asks, somehow managing to ignore Dan’s glare. Instead of answering, Dan raises his hand, and Louis flinches.

“Answer your fucking question?” Dan snaps bitterly, then turns his glare on Harry. “Keys, now,” he demands, and Harry immediately stands to give him them.

“No, don’t give him them yet, we’re not done,” Josh insists, then turns his own glare on Dan. “You’re not being fair. How would you feel if the most mild-mannered person you’d ever met suddenly turned out to have a temper, and hey, turns out they’re fucking terrifying when they’re angry? No matter how much you trust them, it’s going to take some fucking time to get used to it,” he insists, but Dan’s glare doesn’t lessen.

“But I still wouldn’t be scared of them hitting me. No matter how bad the temper, I’d never fucking expect someone I actually trusted to hurt me,” he snaps, but Josh shakes his head.

“Just because you’re fearless, doesn’t mean we all are. I’d trust you with my fucking life, but if I know you’re angry enough to start smoking again after five years, and you suddenly raise your hand, of course I’m going to think you’re about to smack me one!” Josh insists, and Dan sneers.

“I’m not angry, now give me the fucking keys,” he insists, but Josh stops Harry again.

“How can you possibly claim you’re not angry right now?” He demands with a mirthless laugh, and Dan throws his hands up.

“I’m not fucking talking about this. If you won’t give me the keys, then I’ll fucking walk,” he snarls, throwing himself out of the van again and storming away.

“Y’know, a lot of people hide behind anger when they’re upset,” Liam comments softly, and Louis and Niall quickly clamber out of the van to go after him.

They find him twenty feet from the van, both hands clenched in his hair, tugging it harshly as he tries to stifle his sobs. Niall reaches out to him, but as soon as his fingertips brush Dan’s shoulder, he flinches away harshly.

“J-just f-fuck off!” He chokes out, but they both ignore him and sandwich him between them as they hold him tightly. He immediately fights his way out of their grip and staggers back, glaring at them. His wet eyes and trembling lip ruin the effect, though. “How could you ever think that I could…?” He trails off, choking slightly on a sob.

“Of course we don’t think you would, love, it was just such a surprise to see that you actually have a temper. It just… Threw us off a bit,” Louis tries to soothe him, but he doesn’t have much success. Dan shakes his head and sighs sadly.

“I don’t want to talk about this. Can we just get in the van and go?” He whimpers, and they both nod. Niall tries to wrap his arm around Dan’s shoulders again as they walk back to the van, but Dan flinches away from him again. When they get back into the van, Dan climbs over to the furthest back seat, which is only occupied by Harry, who he completely ignores as he settles in the corner furthest away from him, facing the side of the van, and curls up in a ball, sobbing softly. Harry starts to scoot over towards him, but Niall shakes his head to stop him.

“Don’t. He just wants left alone. Just leave him, let him come to us when he’s ready,” he murmurs, and Harry nods, sliding back over to where he’d been sitting. He passes the keys forward to Josh, and they head back out onto the motorway to finish the drive to Abergavenny, all of them trying and failing to block out the sound of Dan’s quiet sobs.

**The Skirrid Mountain Inn**

Dan stops crying halfway to Abergavenny, and he’s so quiet and still the rest of the way that they think he’s sleeping, until they come to a stop in the carpark of The Skirrid Mountain Inn, and he uncurls himself, climbing over the seats and sliding out of the side door without acknowledging any of them.

By the time they all climb out, he’s nowhere in sight, and they start to worry, until he strolls back into the carpark ten minutes later, trying to light a cigarette with a cheap disposable lighter. Louis holds out his own much more reliable lighter to him, but he brushes past without even looking at him, persevering with his own lighter until it finally works.

“How much access do we have tonight?” He finally asks no-one in particular, and they brighten up slightly, hoping he’s starting to forgive them a little.

“Just the communal areas and our rooms, they weren’t willing to shut down for us. Can you sense anything yet?” Josh replies, and Dan shrugs noncommittally.

“A bit,” he grunts, turning away from them and wandering away as he pulls his phone out and starts texting.

They all sigh sadly, but most of them resign themselves to waiting for him to either forgive them, or tell them what they can do to make it up to him. As they start unloading the gear, Niall wanders over to Dan. He doesn’t say anything, just leans against the wall beside him.

“Go away,” Dan mumbles, not looking up from his phone, but Niall ignores him, as well as the slight wheeze that’s started in his chest from Dan’s cigarette smoke.

“Not until you tell me what I can do to make it up to you,” he insists, the slight rasp in his voice the reason Dan finally looks up, dropping his cigarette and stepping on it immediately, even though he still had most of it left. 

“You can trust me,” he mumbles, and Niall sighs.

“I do trust you, of course I do,” he insists, and Dan frowns, which quickly turns to a glare as he shoves his phone in his pocket, spins around and slams his fist into the stone wall, parts of it crumbling around his hand. He immediately turns and swings at Niall, who doesn’t flinch as Dan’s fist barely skims past his face. “You would never hurt me. Or anyone. Ever,” Niall whispers, stepping closer to him.

“You didn’t think that this morning,” Dan frowns, looking away and flexing his hand as it aches slightly.

“I know, but I’ve had time to think now, and I realise how stupid I was, and I swear, I will never not trust you again,” he insists solemnly, and Dan sighs.

“I don’t doubt that, but I’m still hurt, and I need some to just be hurt, ok?” He asks, and Niall nods sadly.

They both go over to the van to help finish unloading the gear. There’s a tense silence for a few minutes, until Josh turns to Dan with a sigh.

“Why didn’t you just tell us we hurt you? We could have talked it out straight away, instead of letting it fester,” he insists gently, and Dan sighs.

“I don’t deal with negative emotions well, never have. I don’t like feeling them, never mind talking about them. I usually just try to ignore them until they go away. Obviously didn’t work very well this time,” he explains in an uncomfortable mumble, shoulders tense, and Josh nods.

“Fair enough. Maybe in future, just say ‘hey, that upset me’ or ‘it hurt me when you said that’. You don’t have to talk about it, just let us know so we can fix it, yeah?” He suggests, and Dan nods with a sigh.

As is becoming the norm with this job, they have a few hours to waste before they can start. They decide to get something to eat, then get a few hours sleep. As they’re sitting in the bar waiting for their food, they notice Dan twitching with an irritated expression.

“You alright?” Louis asks hesitantly, and Dan half shrugs.

“There’s a woman, she won’t shut the fuck up,” he mumbles, hoping she won’t hear him. She’s annoying him now, but he’s going to rely on her chattiness in a few hours.

Once they’re done eating, they start to head upstairs to the rooms they’ve rented for the night for a nap, until they notice Dan’s moving towards the front door instead.

“Where’re you going?” Max asks curiously, and Dan sighs.

“Out to the van to sleep,” he tells them, not expecting the crushed looks on Niall and Louis’ faces.

“We knew you were still upset, but we at least thought-” Dan cuts Niall off with a snort.

“It’s not ‘cause of you guys, it’s her. She’s figured out I can see her, and she’s following me. I’m kinda hoping she can’t leave the building, so I can get some sleep,” he explains, and they relax and nod.

“You want us to come out with you?” Louis asks, but Dan shakes his head.

“Nah, don’t waste the chance to actually sleep in a bed for once, I’ll be fine,” he insists, and though he means it kindly, and it comes out that way, it still kind of feels like a rejection to them, but they nod all the same and let him go.

When they wake up as the sun’s going down, they head outside, some of them to smoke, the others to get the rest of the gear out of the van. Dan’s already awake when they walk out, all sleepy eyed and messy haired in a cloud of smoke.

“So, are you officially smoking again, or is this just while you’re still upset?” Max asks curiously as he leans against the wall beside Dan, who shrugs.

“Not sure yet. At the moment, it’s just while I’m still upset, but that could easily change, so I’m not setting anything in stone, y’know?” He mumbles, voice still slow and sleepy, and Max nods understandingly.

“I just hate that you threw away five years of hard work because of us,” he sighs, Dan quickly waving him off.

“We’re not talking about it. I’ve said and heard everything I needed to, I’m just taking some time to just be upset right now, talking will just make it worse, so shush,” he insists, and Max nods.

The night is relatively uneventful, Dan finds the woman from earlier easily enough, and she’s just as talkative as she was earlier. There’s a shade that’s often seen on the stairs that the staff and most visitors are terrified of that turns out to be perfectly pleasant, just quiet; and when Liam mentions they heard weird noises in their room earlier, they head up to have a look around, and find a lovely, if clumsy older gentleman, who spends half the night talking to Dan.

When they get in the van to head to Caerphilly, Dan’s still quiet, but he sits between Niall and Josh, happily leaning against Niall with his legs draped over Josh’s lap, and though he doesn’t contribute to the conversation, he listens to them, laughing softly every now and again. He’s not totally back to normal yet, but it’s something.

**Llancaiach Fawr**

The drive takes less than an hour, and they head straight to the manor. It’s a living history museum now, so although they can do a scout of the building, and let Dan get a feel for it, they’re worried it’ll be full of visitors that will distract him. Thankfully, the only people there are the staff; an old couple; and a middle-aged couple dragging two teenaged boys and a toddler behind them.

The two teenagers gape at Dan, Josh, and Louis as they wander in and go to the admissions desk. The guy working the desk; a bored looking, acne-riddled boy in his late teens; informs them that their producer has already sorted everything out and to go ahead and do whatever they need to. As they head further into the room, they can hear the two boys whispering.

“It’s them, I’m positive!”

“It must be, this place is haunted as fuck,” at that point, their mother butts in.

“Either way, don’t bother them, they’re obviously busy,” she tells them sternly, smiling politely at the three of them as they pass.

They wander through the rooms for a while, mostly quiet as Dan focuses. After twenty minutes or so, Dan sighs.

“I’m not sure why, but I’ve got a really weird feeling about this place. And it’s not because those two are following us, either,” he announces, turning to look at the two boys behind them with a bemused smile. They both blush and come a bit closer.

“Sorry, we didn’t want to bother you, it’s just… You guys are so fucking cool,” the taller one gushes, and the three of them grin.

“Nah, he is,” Louis argues, aiming his thumb at Dan. “The rest of us are just kind of eh,” he finishes, grinning fondly as Dan blushes.

“I’m really not,” he argues, but the two boys nod enthusiastically.

“He’s right, you’re fucking awesome! I mean, he’s wrong about the rest of them, ‘cause they’re awesome too, but you, mate. Fuckin’ hell. That shit at Cawdor, then you actually kept doing it? You’re fucking hardcore, man!” The shorter one insists, and Dan laughs uncomfortably.

“Well, not all spirits are like that. Very few are, actually. It’d be stupid to stop just because of one,” he mumbles modestly with a shrug, and Louis nudges him.

“Don’t let him fool you, he’s fuckin’ hardcore. The amount of times we’ve been shitting ourselves and he’s totally chill, just… You’re right, he’s awesome,” he grins, his grin widening as Dan’s blush deepens.

The rest of the crew catch up to them then, along with the boys’ family. Their mum starts to berate them, but Dan stops her.

“It’s fine, really, they’re not bothering us,” he insists, and she looks conflicted.

“But… You’re filming, aren’t you?” She asks, looking around with a surprised expression when she realises they don’t have any cameras.

“Nah, we don’t start filming until after dark. We’re just doing a walkthrough, letting our medium get a feel for the place,” Josh explains, and she nods, a little happier.

At the boys’ surprisingly polite request, they all autograph a few pieces of scrap paper their dad provides, then take turns taking photos with them and their adorable little sister. Once they’re all done, the two boys thank them profusely as they reluctantly follow their parents away.

“So, that was kinda fuckin’ surreal,” Max comments softly, and they all hum in agreement. Suddenly, what Dan said earlier clicks in Louis’ head, and he spins around looking panicked.

“You feel weird about this place. You said that. You said you got a weird feeling about this place,” he babbles, and Dan hushes him gently.

“Not like that. I wouldn’t still be here if it was like that. Something’s making me vaguely uncomfortable, but it’s not a threat. I can’t figure it out past that,” he explains, and though they still frown worriedly, they trust his instincts.

Dan doesn’t really sense anything during the walkthrough, but he’d expected that, most spirits are more active at night. He does get hints at some of the spirits, or their personalities, at least. In one room, he keeps getting lost in thought, no matter how hard he tries to focus. In the end, Niall leads him out of the room by the hand to stop him walking into anything else. Or anyone else. Liam’s still looking a little uneasy from when Dan walked into him. Well, he’s mostly uneasy about the fact that Dan had tried to keep walking, as though Liam wasn’t even there. When they’re walking through the upstairs rooms, Dan walks into a room and starts giggling uncontrollably. They go through three rooms and back down to the ground floor before he manages to stop.

“At least we know there’s one friendly spirit here,” he grins to reassure them, but it doesn’t really work.

The manager lets them back in as he’s closing, making a hasty exit as soon as possible. They think it’s a bit weird, but don’t bother about it too much. They’ve just finished filming the intro, and are getting ready to do a proper walkthrough, when Dan yelps and spins to look at them.

“Did… Did one of you…?” He trails off when he realises how far away they are and frowns.

“Did we what?” Josh prompts, and Dan sighs.

“Someone just squeezed my arse. It clearly wasn’t one of you,” he explains, and Josh sniggers slightly.

“You got felt up by a ghost?” He laughs, and Dan sighs.

“Apparently,” he comments dryly as he turns and walks further into the building.

It happens three more times before Dan gets sick of it.

“Either show yourself or stop it!” He demands to the room, but rather than an answer, all he gets is a cold, invisible hand squeezing his crotch instead. He yelps again, jumping backwards into Matt, who almost drops his boom as he catches Dan. “Fine, have it your way,” he snaps, going to the corner he’d dropped his bag in, and pulling out the tub of salt he keeps in it. He dumps a handful into each pocket of his jeans, then drops the tub back into his bag.

He starts to walk back to them, muttering to himself, when something grabs him and pins him against the wall. 

“Let me go,” he demands calmly, aware that the others are panicking slightly. He knows this must look a bit too much like Cawdor. The hands pinning him to the wall don’t move, and he sighs. “Your advances are not welcome. Back off,” he insists with more force, and the hands vanish. He steps away from the wall and smiles reassuringly to the others. “See, sometimes you just need to be firm with them,” he tells them lightly, hoping to calm them down, and it mostly works.

“Is that why you felt a bit uneasy earlier?” Max asks softly, and Dan shrugs one shoulder.

“I think so, not sure just yet, though,” he answers, and they nod, relaxing slightly. They’re still a little on edge, though, and will be until Dan’s sure there’s not something worse lurking.

They wander around for a while, discovering that Dan’s weird giggling from earlier was caused by a group of children playing on the stairs. None of them speak English, though, and none of the crew speak Welsh, so they don’t stay with the kids for long. They go back to the room where Dan kept getting lost in thought, hoping to solve that mystery too, but Dan takes one step into the room, gasps, and backs straight out again, pulling Liam out with him. They all stare at him worriedly as he leans against the door after he slams it closed.

“Sword. Big one,” he chokes out, eyes still wide. They give him a few minutes to calm down, then Josh gently prods him for more of an explanation. “Sorry, the spirit in there had a broadsword. Ran at me with it as soon as I opened the door. Can’t say it would’ve actually done anything, but I didn’t fancy hanging around to find out,” he tells them, and they all make noises of agreement.

The rest of the night doesn’t produce much. A housekeeper and a little boy wandering the upper floor, but they either don’t speak English, or just don’t want to talk to Dan. As they’re coming out to film the outro in front of the building, Dan notices a woman wandering through the grass. He calls out to her, but she gives him a look of sheer terror and runs in the opposite direction.

“Maybe not, then,” he mumbles, turning back to them and shaking his head to let them know the spirit wasn’t responsive. They film the outro, wait for the staff to turn up, since they don’t want to just leave the place unlocked, then climb into the van. 

As they’re heading into Nelson to find somewhere to get breakfast, Dan empties the salt from his pockets. He can’t get all of it out, though, so he decides to just change his jeans. When he bends down to get a clean pair out of his bag, he hears Harry make a weird noise behind him.

“What the hell? Hold still,” He tells him, then Dan feels him pull up the leg of his boxers. He looks over his shoulder as he hears most of them hissing and muttering.

“What the fuck are you doing?” He asks, laughing slightly, but it fades at the looks they’re giving him.

“Did you not tell us that ghost was hurting you, or did you not realise?” Niall demands, and Dan frowns.

“Well, I have no fucking idea what you’re talking about, so I’m gonna go with the second one,” he snaps, feeling slightly defensive now, and their expressions soften.

“Sorry, it’s just… You have a massive bruise in the shape of a handprint on your arse, so…” Niall explains, and Dan relaxes.

“I didn’t know he was squeezing that hard, it was more annoying than anything,” Dan tells him, calmer now that they’re not accusing him. They nod and let him finish getting changed as Matt pulls into a carpark, having finally found somewhere to eat.

**Plas Teg**

As they pass a sign proclaiming _‘Flintshire welcomes careful drivers!’_ a few hours later, Dan starts laughing softly to himself. When the others notice and start squinting at him in confusion, he laughs harder.

“We’re in me-shire,” he tells them, and they groan; Josh, Chris, and Max throwing things at him as they all go back to what they were doing.

After they catch a few hours of sleep in a carpark, they head up to the house late in the afternoon. It’s earlier than they’d usually start, but the owner doesn’t usually allow overnight stays, so she’s being extremely accommodating to them, it’s the least they can do to do things on her schedule. As they get closer to the house, they start to worry about Dan slightly. One minute he’s laughing about something the rest of them can’t figure out, then he’ll go quiet for a while, snapping at them when they try to talk to him.

He’s in one of the quiet, angry swings when they pull up to the house. He traipses sullenly behind Josh, Louis, and Max as they go to talk to the owner, Cornelia, while the others unload the van. The three of them talk to her for a few minutes, until she looks to Dan curiously.

“Sorry about him, he’s been a bit weird the last half an hour or so,” Josh tells her sheepishly, and she smiles knowingly.

“Mood swings?” She asks, and they nod. “Yes, most people who are… Sensitive to other plains tend to have that reaction. It should even out soon enough,” she explains, and they nod in relief.

While Josh and Louis interview Cornelia, the rest of the crew go inside to set up. They’re so wary of Dan and his mood swings that none of them are willing to argue when he grabs one of the handhelds and trudges off on his own. By the time he comes back, Josh, Louis, Matt, and Liam have joined the others, and they’re just about done setting up. They’re happy to note he seems in a better mood, though he is still acting a little odd. 

Things are mostly normal, until Louis decides to use the bathroom before they start filming. He’s on his way back to the room they’ve set up in, when he finds Dan blocking the hallway. Louis laughs softly, thinking Dan’s just messing around, and moves to swerve around him. He stops laughing when Dan grabs him, slamming him against the wall. He uses his body to keep Louis pinned as he slides his hands down to Louis’ thighs, pulling them up and forcing them around his waist.

“Danny? What’re you doing?” Louis asks with a small smile, he’s slightly nervous, though. He hadn’t realised just how much bigger and stronger Dan is until now. Dan ignores him, grabbing both of Louis’ wrists in one hand and pinning them above his head as the other hand wraps loosely around Louis’ throat. Louis is about to question him again when Dan kisses him hard, forcing his tongue into Louis’ mouth. 

Louis whines and tries to wriggle free, but freezes when Dan’s hand tightens on his throat, not enough to stop him breathing, but enough to warn him. He holds still, not struggling, but not kissing back, either, until Dan pulls back in frustration, a smear of blood on his bottom lip from where he’d bitten Louis’ tongue.

“Why aren’t you doing anything?” He snarls softly, and Louis starts trembling.

“You’re hurting me,” he whispers shakily, and Dan hesitates, a strange conflicted look coming into his eyes.

Suddenly, he lets Louis go, backing away as he grabs his head, tugging at his hair as he groans lowly. The rest of the crew come along the hall just as Louis steps forward, reaching out to Dan.

“Don’t! Don’t fucking touch me!” Dan roars hysterically, backing away further as Louis flinches, the others looking bewildered as they reach him.

“What the fuck is going on?” Chris asks, but Louis just shrugs helplessly, watching Dan with terrified eyes.

All they can do is watch as Dan staggers, pulling hard on his hair as he groans in agony.

“Get the fuck out! Get out, get out, get out!” He screams, and they’re just about to comply, when he lets out an inhuman noise and slumps against the wall, gasping for breath. 

“Danny?” Louis tries hesitantly, and Dan’s head shoots up towards him, eyes bright and slightly hysterical. He rushes over to Louis, grabbing him and turning him from side to side as he looks him up and down.

“Did it hurt you? Did it make me hurt you?!” He demands, breathing far too fast. Louis cups Dan’s face in his hands, forcing him to look him in the eyes as he smiles gently.

“I’m fine. It just scared me a little, but I’m fine,” he insists, hoping Dan won’t notice the bruises that are forming on his wrists.

“What the fuck was that?” Niall asks nervously, and Dan gulps.

“I have no idea. I… I don’t remember anything. One minute I was upstairs, next thing I know, I’m down here, I’ve got Louis pinned against the wall, and he’s telling me I’m hurting him. I tried to let him go, but… It was like something was fighting me. Like there was something else in my head trying to take control,” he tells them hoarsely, and they gape at him.

They’re silent for a minute, then Josh has an idea.

“You took one of the handhelds with you, didn’t you? Why don’t we hook it up to one of the laptops, see if it caught what happened?” He suggests, and they nod. As they walk back to their base, Louis grips Dan’s hand, squeezing tight and refusing to let go when Dan tries to pull away guiltily. 

They all crowd around Harry’s laptop as Liam connects the handheld to it. They watch as the footage loads and starts playing. It starts innocently enough, with Dan wandering around the ground floor, mumbling grumpily to himself. Nothing really happens until he gets to the drawing room on the first floor. As soon as he walks in, the camera picks up a weird, undulating, vaguely ominous looking black blob floating in the air in the middle of the room. When he sees it, Dan sits the camera down on a table by the door and cautiously moves towards it. He says something the camera doesn’t pick up, then the blob slams into his chest, his back arching more than should be possible as he makes a god-awful gurgling, choking noise, clearly fighting the entity for control. The fight only lasts for a minute or so, and the entity clearly wins. There’s a malicious smirk on his face that none of them have ever seen before; and pray they never see again; as he walks back over and picks the camera up.

“Finally, time for some fun. But where to start, your little slut with the tight jeans, or your little Irish whore? Hmmm, think I’ll start with the slut,” the entity ponders with Dan’s mouth, and Niall reaches out and slams Harry’s laptop closed with a violently shaking hand.

“I’m not staying here. I can’t,” he rasps, and they all nod, packing everything up quickly as Max phones Cornelia to tell her what happened, and that they’re leaving.

It’s still early as they drive away from the house, but it’s a three and a half hour drive to Port Talbot. They agree to drive straight there and make a decision on whether to film there tonight or not once they get there. They’re all still kind of freaked out, so they’re huddling together as much as possible, apart from Dan, who’s sitting as far away from the rest of them as he can, curling in on himself as guilt tries to eat him alive.

After a few minutes, Louis realises Dan’s missing from their group hug, and looks around for him. When he spots him, his heart breaks at the obvious signs of Dan beating himself up. Louis wriggles free and clambers over the seats to get to him. He flops down beside Dan and pulls him into a tight hug, stroking his hair soothingly.

“I knew something had to be wrong. The whole time, I knew it wasn’t you. Couldn’t be you. You’d never hurt me,” Louis insists gently, and it’s the god’s honest truth.

“I should have fought harder, though. Look at what it almost did to you. What it was going to do to you and Niall. Look at what it did do to you,” Dan mumbles miserably, taking Louis’ left arm from around him, gently rubbing his thumb over the dark bruise on his wrist.

“But you stopped it. As soon as you knew it was hurting me, you fought back, you got it out. Because you couldn’t bear the thought of it hurting me,” Louis reassures him, pulling his arm back a little so Dan’s hand slips from his wrist into his own hand. “Come and cuddle with us, love. We all really need each other right now, especially you,” he begs, and Dan nods, following Louis back to where the others are watching them quietly. As soon as they reach them, they make a gap and pull both of them into the middle of their pile, pressing in tight around them, all of them desperate to show Dan that they’re here for him and that they don’t blame him.

**Margam Castle**

When they get to Port Talbot, it’s only half eleven, so they decide to film that night. A quick phone call with Steven shoots them down, though. It was hard enough convincing the council to let them in, there’s no way they’ll let them in a night early. Once he finds out why they’re there early, he’s even more adamant that they wait. He’s horrified that something went wrong again, and demands that they take a night off to sort themselves out. He even tries to convince them to let him talk to the council and put off filming for a day or two, but they all refuse. Steven is hesitant to agree with them on this, but the fact that even Dan and Louis are insisting they film the next night convinces him.

They’re still a little on edge when the council worker; a surly man in his fifties; lets them in the next night, but they’ve calmed down considerably. Once the man leaves, they find a room to set up their base and start unloading the gear. They’re just about ready to film the intro when Dan freezes and whimpers softly. They all stop and turn to him with terrified eyes as Niall crosses the room to hold him tightly.

“There’s a man here. He’s so angry,” Dan mumbles against Niall’s shoulder, and Niall squeezes tighter.

“Do we need to leave?” He asks softly, and Dan considers it for a moment, then shakes his head.

“He’s not angry at us. I don’t think he even realises we’re here. He just… He scared me for a second, is all,” he reassures them, releasing Niall now that they’re both a bit calmer.

They start filming the intro, but have to stop when Chris keeps shifting, moving his camera and looking around it. Finally, he signals to Josh and Louis to cut, then sets his camera down on a nearby table and starts fiddling with it.

“What’s wrong?” Max asks from where he’s leaning against the wall with Dan and Niall, and Chris shrugs.

“Not sure yet, it keeps picking up balls of light that aren’t there, I think-” He cuts off with a squawk as Dan rushes forward and hip-checks him out of the way. His hands are gentle as he picks up the camera and turns to point it at where Josh and Louis are still standing, looking curious and a little bit worried.

He looks through it for a minute, then sits it back down onto the table, grinning widely.

“Light orbs. Harmless spirits, nothing to worry about,” he tells them, and they grin back, glad to see him smile again. They finish the intro, mentioning the orbs this time, then begin the walkthrough. Several times, Dan changes their direction mid-step, doing everything in his power to avoid the angry man he’d sensed earlier. He does get a name, though, Robert Scott. Max researches it and tells them that he was once the gamekeeper, who was killed by a poacher. Dan’s reassured when Max tells them that other mediums who’d been here have all said it’s his death that he’s so angry about, and while he does occasionally throw things and slam doors, he’s never outright attacked anyone.

Dan still does his best to avoid him, though, pursuing a group of giggling children instead. They seem to think it’s a game, always staying just out of sight. When he stops following them to speak to a blacksmith he comes across, he finishes his conversation and turns to keep moving, and finds two of them peeking around the corner at him. He grins and waves at them, and they start giggling and run away again.

By the time the sun is rising, Dan’s anxieties have almost completely vanished. They’ve got the orbs on camera, they have sound recordings of the kids laughing, his conversation with the blacksmith, and a distant angry shout that they believe was Robert Scott. And most importantly, no-one came anywhere close to being hurt while they were there. They take the van back to the place they rented it from, drop off the footage and audio recordings, and all head their separate ways. No-one’s complaining about a month off this time.


End file.
